Welcome To Holland

２００４ 年１２月４日、予定日より２週間早く待望の娘は生まれてきました。産声をあげず、初めて泣き声を聞いたのは１ヶ月の予防接種のとき。赤ちゃんって こんなもんじゃない！と思っていた母の直感はあたり、１７ヶ月になる今現在、いまだ一人で座ることもできず、原因のわからない発達遅延の診断のまま今に至 ります。当たり前のように思っていた普通の赤ちゃんをなくした喪失感、これからの私たち家族の人生と娘の将来に対する不安、あ まりの展開に気持ちが追いつかず・・・。そんななか、いろいろな文章や詩に出会い元気づけられました。その中でも、今の私の気持ちをとてもよく表したこの "Welcome To Holland"からこのブログをはじめます。私のちいさなオランダは、周りのみんなに愛され見守られて、毎日普通の人には見えないようなゆっくりペース で成長 しています。忙しい毎日のなか、そんな彼女のちいさなちいさな変化も見逃さないように。

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
By Emily Perl Kingsley

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.