“There’s something not hooked up right with your boys” is what a school psychologist said to me when my sons were 5. At the time, there wasn’t a name for what ‘wasn’t hooked up right’. First ADHD, then PDD, EBD, LD, and finally Asperger Syndrome, though medicine has recently done away with that term as well. Now it’s simply autism.
Life has not been an easy road for these two guys. It’s not easy for anyone who is different. But each time I saw my sons bullied, or taken advantage of, even now at age 36, I’m amazed at how they continue to grow stronger. I’m inspired as they see the best in everyone, and and so incredibly proud as they show us all the real meaning of forgiveness and love.
I hope you will join me in wishing a Very Happy Birthday to Ryan and Brad.
Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley
“When you’re 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’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 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 guidebook. 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, 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.”
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”
Sometimes life takes you in a direction that you didn’t plan, but isn’t that just the beauty of it all.
April is Autism Awareness month.
Congratulations to all the families of individuals with autism. They are truly tulips and Rembrandts!