I'm biologically related to 3 people in that photo above - now you know where I got some of my more "interesting" features 0_0
Tomorrow, Jag and I will have been married 19 years. I really adore the guy - not only am I in love with him, I happen to like and enjoy him.
We went to a Fraser fund raiser Saturday night ( a wonderful center in our area that helps special needs kids; autistic folks in particular. Mark went there for 5 years ).
As you might imagine, it's an evening full of an array of emotions for us. It brings up memories for us that are mostly wonderful but some are painful. We get to run into old friends and take a stroll down memory lane ( we ran into our former A.S.S. members...... folks that we used to hang out with once a month so our autistic kids could be with other families that didn't freak out over someone banging their head against a wall. Oh...and btw, A.S.S. stands for Autistic Social Society -- naturally, I coined our title after a margarita or 2. We've also been known to burn a book or two ).
One father got up and gave a talk on how it was to raise his special needs son -- he read the HOLLAND poem which brought the house down. He then read it again and applied it to his own life with his son and he couldn't get through it - the man was reduced to tears. Not a dry eye in the place.
Later - the director of Fraser took the stage and asked everyone to stand that knew someone with autism ( there were probably 800 people there )....3/4 of the room stood up. Amazing actually. She said ( and I may have mucked this up a bit ) that every 20 minutes, 12 children are diagnosed with autism. It's at an epidemic rate in this country - yet funding is down for research and programs.
What does this have to do with Jag and me and our Anniversary??? I'm so very thankful to be married to someone who has my back on this journey and who quietly grabs my hand at galas like this to remind me he is with me and cherishes me.
Below - is a copy of 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 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.
