Today is my third stroke anniversary. This story sums up how I feel.

Some of you may know it. It is a story how Emily came to accept the birth of her disabled child. To me it had similiralities of my thoughts about having a stroke.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by

Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

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.

The last three paragraphs sum up how I feel at the moment.

Except I am not really enjoying Holland yet. I keep going to Germany, half way to Italy. I still kid myself I will get to Italy one day, but find myself in no mans land.

One day I will accept that I can build a really good life for myself in Holland. Certainly this little corner of Holland I like very much.

Upwards and onwards..I am one of the lucky ones and I do thank my lucky stars.

You may be wondering why it s a double anniversary. Today is also my wedding anniversary. I am lost for words to express how I feel about that....an irony to say the least. Tonight we are going to go and see the Davinci code and go for a chinese meal Then look forward to the coming year.

My best wishes to one and all

Mary