Poems

This morning my mother showed me a wonderful poem by Emily Pearl Kingsley. The poem is called "Welcome To Holland". After i finished reading it i breathed a huge sigh of relief, for this woman helped finally answered my question on how do i explain to people what living with a sibling with a disability is like. Even though the poem is geared toward the parents and not the siblings I still feel as if it was, in a way, made for me. It made me feel like this is a very beautiful was of looking at the situation at hand. I hope you love it as much as i do.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Birthday parties

Today is Justin's 10th birthday, in the past his birthday parties have just been family and he's been totally okay with that but in my heart I always felt a little sad for him because i want him to have friends but if hes happy then whatever. But this year he had his heart set on having all of his friends from summer school to come. So we gave him invitations to hand out to each of his class mates and only one kid RSVP. At first Justin had a melt down but then we explained to him that sometimes people get very busy during the summer and that seemed to calm him down. Now the story with the only person who RSVP is that this boy is 10 years old and had never been invited to a birthday party before and apparently when he received the invitation and brought it home he was so full of joy and happiness the mother called mine and RSVP as soon as possible and couldn't stop thanking her. When my mom told me this I felt so happy and sad at the same time. Now when we got to Chuck E. Cheese (Justin's had his birthday there every year since he was like 4) we were there about an hour before his friend came and he was totally content with playing alone but as soon as his little friend came over and gave him his present i saw the light in his eyes sparkle just a little bit more. They didnt necessarily play with each other but they stayed in the same area and waited for each other before leaving to go some where else. And when it was time to eat they sat at a little booth together and ate cake and pizza just as happy as too peas in a pod. When i glanced over and saw them talking with each other it brought tears to my eyes. I've never seen Justin carry an actual conversation with anyone. And the little boy he was with is also autistic so there was no confrontation, no judgement, and no cruel words of hate and it warmed my heart to see him so happy. He did at one point get a little upset when the little boy helped him blow out that candles but what can you do (: Even though only one boy showed up, thats really all Justin needs. It was nice not having to occupy him the entire time, and it was also nice to see him interact with someone his own age. weather he acts ten years old or not he was the happiest little boy in the entire building and it made me feel so good inside. To see my baby brother grow up and be such a happy guy is a blessing and we cant wait for many more happy years to come. 

Sweet Serendipity - Lee DeWyze ~ w/ lyrics