This article explains the heart of a parent with a child on the autism spectrum; the realization that your dreams for child has been shattered. The beauty of the poem though is not in how light it makes the situation seem, or in how beautiful it paints it, but in the hope it gives at the end.
Nobody plans to have a child with autism, but a parent can stay in depression or misery, or can choose to be strong and make the most out of the situation; choose to see the beauty in their child and build new dreams.
"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"
(c)1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
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