HASC, Holland
About nine years ago my dear friend Rabbi Binyamin Blau told me about this essay. He spent several summers in Camp HASC and I heard him read this at Bruriah HS as part of a presentation about his experiences at HASC. Today I was talking to a colleague about books and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time came up. And the conversation turned towards kids with disabilities. And I thought of this article and realized that even though I didn't have a printed copy of it, today it may be on line. Sure enough I found it.
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WELCOME TO HOLLAND
(Author Unknown)
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared the 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, Michaelangelo's 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 have not 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 guidebooks. 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 after 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 from and going to 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 will never, ever, 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.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 10:35 PM
2 Comments:
the pain will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss…
To me, that is a good description of life in general. When we are young, we have such lofty aspirations and high ideals! They are "dreams" insofar as they are unrealistic. Experience tends to knock those aspirations and ideals out of shape.
Waking up from the dream can be an excruciatingly painful process. The more we fight it, the more painful it is.
But life gives us something else in return. As reality comes into clearer focus, we find that our happiness isn't dependent on the dreams we set out with. Reality turns out to be something other than we expected, but still deeply meaningful and fulfilling.
At least that has been my experience. (I wish I could express my point more clearly, but it would involve telling you my whole life story.)
It probably isn't good form to refer you to my blog the first time I post a comment here, but you may be interested in my tribute to a developmentally challenged friend. I must add that the individual was not my son, so I don't mean to suggest that my emotional experience was parallel to the story you recount.
I offer it as confirmation to what you've written: after you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. No one dreams of having a developmentally challenged child, but every human being has a unique beauty.
Q
Thank you Q and Mirty - Your comments were wise and true. Q - I read your piece on your friend and like your comment here it was apt and beautiful.
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