Welcome to Holland

I have come across this a few times in the past, and each time I read it, I find it more and more appropriate for where I am at today. Our new life in "Holland" is never what we thought it would be. We always and only wanted "Italy". But as we come up to our first year without MJ, we are slowly starting to enjoy "Holland" and see the pure beauty in what our life is today. We have an absolutely amazing little boy named Will that we are in awe of each and every day. We have an equally amazing little boy in Heaven waiting for us. So many people love and remember him each and every day. My biggest fear after we lost MJ was that he was going to be forgotten. Now, almost a year after he died in my arms, I know he will never be forgotten. Not by our family, not our friends, and not by the wonderful amazing people who took care of him in the hospital when we could not be there.

While I still ache for "Italy", I can appreciate and love "Holland" . . . .

Welcome To Holland
by
Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of losing a child- 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.