Welcome To Holland

We were sent a wonderful pack from the Federation for Deaf Children this week, which was full of wonderful things including a soft toy elephant with hearing aids, and some books about him, which Cameron loves. It had a whole load of resources about how to parent children with hearing problems, and music cd's etc. It also had a piece of writing called "Welcome to Holland" by E.P.Kingsley. Though it made me cry, it was such a wonderful way of explaining things, that i had to put it on here. (I hope I'm not breaking any copyrite laws or anything). It is hard to put into words what it feels like at the moment, and though i feel incredibly ungrateful, I'm so angry at times i could scream. It just doesn't seem fair, mostly for James i guess. He never signed up for this... Sorry. I'll just write the story...

"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 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. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The imporant things is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, flithy 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 have been there a while and you catch your breath you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, and Holland has tulips, and Holland even has Rembrandts.
"But everyone you know is busy coming and going to Italy... and they're 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 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."