1991 --
"Welcome to Holland" ---
This story was the beginning of my change in perspective as I now changed course to see
the very beautiful, the very lovely things about my son.
When
Joshua was about 8 years old, a friend of mine gave me a copy of a beautiful
article called “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley. I loved it instantly. I felt the connection to my situation and
knew that I was focusing too much on what Joshua’s could not do, instead of focusing on what Joshua could do. Yes, there were broken dreams, but this article gave greater hope and greater joy in new dreams. This perspective was a huge help on the harder days to help me retain my focus on the very beautiful, the very lovely
things about my son.
Welcome to
Holland
By Emily Perl Kingsley
It’s like this . . . When you’re
going to have a child, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to
Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and
make your wonderful plans. The
Colosseum. 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. You’ve landed in Holland and there you must
stay.
The important thing is . . . 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 guidebooks. 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. 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. 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.”
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.
(Elaine
L. Jack, "Grounded, Settled, and Full of Hope", Ensign, Mar.
1996, 19.)
The
miracle and the realization of the countless very special, very lovely things
about Joshua, and the discovery of these new guidebooks, "languages" and wonderful, compassionate and sensitive people was truly a beautiful journey of love.My hope is that the many posts in this memory blog capture the incredible blessings and joys of my very special and beautiful son.
To read the continuation of my journey to find Holland, click the following links:
http://joshuasheartfullofhugs.blogspot.com/2013/04/1991-2005-finding-holland-my-broken.html
http://joshuasheartfullofhugs.blogspot.com/2013/05/1991-2005-finding-holland-continued-so.html
