Accepting AF - a poem

[secondtry]

A poem written by the mother of an autistic child in Berkshire.....but really there is a lot for all of us:

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a neuro diverse child - 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 are going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks 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 has been a change in flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy a new guide book. 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 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 are 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"

The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a 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.

[jeanjeannie50]

My goodness that's really thought provoking and so true. Thank you for sharing.

[Hidden]

Lovely secondtry, very apt and true. My own thoughts exactly!

[Ducky2003]

Love it.

[Singwell]

That is lovely. Thank you for sharing. It's a weird thing isn't it - the accepting? I'll be 2 years in in December and life HAS changed. Actually quite a few things are better. And some are unpleasant too. Sometimes it's very upsetting, but that doesn't last, unless we let it.

[Hylda2]

First time I read “Welcome to Holland” after our great-granddaughter was born I was moved to tears. She was fine at birth but when weaned onto protein the epilepsy etc started. She is now 9, non-vocal, doubly incontinent but we wouldn’t swap Holland for Paradise x

[barbharris1937]

That is such a positive way of looking at life.Thank you.

[Kaz747]

As the mother of a 30 year old autistic daughter, I can totally relate on a number of fronts 😉.

[Crystalbowl]

Wonderful and applicable to so many of life’s twists and turns!

[Bennera513]

Very timely,..thank you!