Welcome to Holland

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 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.

Written by Emily Perl Kingsley


To read more beautiful and heartwarming autism poems click here.

What I Have Lost

I lost my mother to a gun
Ever since then I’ve been on the run


On Mother’s Day I cannot phone
She’s not here I’m all alone


After she was killed I heard her voice
She said, “I’m sorry I left, but I had no choice.”


The man who killed her never did time
It never cost him one thin dime



by Betty Phillips

Cynthia Leigh Waters

Child

Yearns

Never-never Land

Touches

Hurt

Instant Love

All Mine

Loving and Lovable

Emotional

Intricate

God’s Child

Hard Life

Wondrous

Admirable

Trusting

Eclectic

Romantic

Sunny

You were my joy and my life,

My everything, my all

You were an answer to prayer

I loved you so much

I had to give you away

You weren’t a toy

I would have broken you

You were my sunshine

After you were gone

I lived in perpetual darkness.

I became an underground animal

Never seeking the sun

You are my sun

by Betty Phillips

What I Have Lost

I know through the years

There were good times and bad

Unfortunately what hurts

I remember the bad

I’ve disappointed you

In so many ways

The drinking, the drugging

Almost forgetting your special day

I know you’ve lost trust

Today is a new day

I’m sobering up

While missing you the same

The days are getting better

I’m recalling the good days

I know that this year

I’ll remember your special day

by Jill Smith

Indian Boarding School: The Runaways

Home’s the place we head for in our sleep.   

Boxcars stumbling north in dreams

don’t wait for us. We catch them on the run.   

The rails, old lacerations that we love,   

shoot parallel across the face and break   

just under Turtle Mountains. Riding scars

you can’t get lost. Home is the place they cross.

The lame guard strikes a match and makes the dark   

less tolerant. We watch through cracks in boards   

as the land starts rolling, rolling till it hurts   

to be here, cold in regulation clothes.

We know the sheriff’s waiting at midrun

to take us back. His car is dumb and warm.

The highway doesn’t rock, it only hums

like a wing of long insults. The worn-down welts   

of ancient punishments lead back and forth.

All runaways wear dresses, long green ones,

the color you would think shame was. We scrub   

the sidewalks down because it's shameful work.   

Our brushes cut the stone in watered arcs   

and in the soak frail outlines shiver clear

a moment, things us kids pressed on the dark   

face before it hardened, pale, remembering

delicate old injuries, the spines of names and leaves.

 By Louise Erdrich

Love The Children!

when the money is gone,
and they've taken everything away...
they padlocked your house,
and repoed your car...
the years have passed,
have taken their toll.
even the fires of love,
burned down to embers...
at the end of the day,
at the end of the road...
all you have left are the children.
they carry your heart
to a new day and a new world...
love the children!

every child that is born
carries the holy seed.
whatever it takes,
love the children!
a Jesus, a Buddha, a JFK,
a Gandhi, an Einstein,
a Whitman, a Jefferson...
maybe a stronger, better,
reflection of you!
love the children!

by Eric Cockrell

The Love of Mother Theresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical,

and self-centered...

Forgive them anyway.



If you are kind,

people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives...

Be kind anyway.



If you are successful,

you will win some false friends and some true enemies...

Succeed anyway.



If you are honest and frank,

people may cheat you...

Be honest and frank anyway.



What you spend years building,

some could destroy overnight...

Build anyway.



If you find serenity and happiness,

there may be jealousy...

Be happy anyway.



The good you do today,

people will often forget tomorrow...

Do good anyway.



Give the world the best you have,

and it may never be enough...

Give the world the best you've got anyway.



You see, in the final analysis,

it's between you and God,

It was never between you and them anyway.



~~~ Mother Theresa ~~~