The aim of the parents section of the blog is simply to share, whether that be inspiration and knowledge, or stories and equipment – anything that we feel whilst writing this blog could benefit others we will share on this section for grown-ups…
When I was incredibly small and in one of my Mum’s darkest hours she was given this story by a friend of a friend, it helped her that day, as it did on many days to come, especially when she sometimes thought “why Will?” By sharing this story with you, who knows it may help you or someone you know to have a brighter day and just for one moment in time realise you or they are not alone. My Mum loves this story and I hope you do too.
Love Will xxx
A Story for Parents by Emily Pearl
“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 are going to have a baby it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy for example. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make wonderful plans. The coliseums, the Michaelangelo 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 dreamed of going to Italy”. But there’s 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 a horrible disgusting place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guidebooks…… And you will learn a whole new language….. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would have never 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 you and begin to notice that Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts!
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re 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 go away, because the loss of that dream is a 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.
Although, I often feel, that along the way we have also landed in Greece, Spain, France, Russia etc etc etc!!!”
by Emily Pearl