00:00I'm often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability,
00:05to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it,
00:09to imagine how it would feel. It's like this. When you're going to have a baby,
00:15it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and you make
00:20wonderful plans. The Colosseum, the Michelangelo, you may even learn some handy phrases in Italian.
00:26It's all really exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.
00:32You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands and the stewardess comes in
00:39and she says, welcome to Holland. Holland, you say? What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy,
00:46I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy, but there's been a
00:51change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important
00:57thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place. It's just a different
01:02place. So you must go out there and buy new guidebooks and you must learn a whole new language
01:10and you will meet a whole new group of people that you would have never have met.
01:14This is just a different place. It's a slower pace than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've
01:21been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland
01:27has windmills. And Holland even has tulips.
01:34Everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they're all bragging about what a wonderful
01:39time they've had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, yes, that's where I was supposed
01:46to go. That's what I had planned. And the pain of that will never, ever go away because the loss
01:54of that
01:54dream is a very, very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't
02:01get to go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very beautiful things about
02:09Holland.
Comments