Holland is lovely, too.

I’m not going to lie. I have my bad days when it comes to the diabetes diagnosis my daughter received. Most of the time I remain positive, thankful and don’t look back, but there are other times when I catch a glimpse of something that MIGHT have been – something that USED to be a certain way or an old memory creeps up on me without warning and I lose it into a ball of tears. I pray … A LOT. That’s nothing new though – I always pray a lot – I just have something new to pray about. I know God hears me and comforts me. I can feel Him. I see a difference in my attitude and daily life and the way I view things. That “goodness” that I want to be sure I find in everything seems to have an underline and BOLD typeface because of Him. He helps me see the goodness AND reminds me of the beauty of life still.

One way God has helped me is by already bringing such wonderful people into my life because of the diagnosis. Everyone knows that there is safety in numbers. It helps to be surrounded by people who are going through similar circumstances and I am blessed to have received emails, sweet words of encouragement and prayers from people I have never met before, but that know what we are going through and how hard it is. I am thankful for them. Each and every one of them.

I sometimes wish I had the most perfect words to describe how all of this makes me feel. And then it happened. I read the following words and it resonated within me so much. It is EXACTLY how I feel. It’s perfect. So I am sharing it with you here.

Thank you, Joanne, for posting the following words on your blog. I appreciate you and I am so sorry that we met because of the diagnosis our sweet daughters share. BIG hugs.
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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.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley

I’ve learned already, even in this short amount of time, that Holland is lovely, too. Life is beautiful no matter where you are.