Joyful Journys

Do you know those moments when you're watching TV, or listening to the radio, or reading a blog, that you hear something that makes a connection between your feelings and the lost words to describe them? That light bulb suddenly clicks on and you're brought to a place of greater understanding of your own feelings that have been dwelling inside of you. Affirmation.

I had one of those moments this past week.

There are really only two shows that Mike and I thoroughly enjoy following closely. You know the one already. That's The Office. The other is House.

We were watching a past episode in Season 5 of House where a special needs teacher fell sick and was at the mercy of Dr. House's brilliant Sherlock Holmes skills in diagnosing, in order to save her life. During the patient's exam, another doctor complimented her for being a teacher to children with special needs telling her that it's a great thing what she does.

Her response was the moment my feelings connected with the words that can express what I feel everyday with Cayman.

The teacher's words:

Most kids, typical children, you hand them a pair of scissors and they cut. Well, Tony, he's got CP, and when I gave him scissors we went on a journey together; learning to get his fingers in those holes, to hold the scissors apart, to hold the paper. When he finally learned to cut we both just wept with joy.

I wish, through typed words, I could add the spoken tone that that dear teacher used. She felt such joy and wonderment for sharing in this kind of amazing journey.

I connected with this because I know those kinds of rewarding journeys too! We have gone on many of our own.

Learning to drink from a bottle when Cayman was only a month old, was a 3 week journey...

Learning how to eat pureed food and then chewing actual bites. She just recently mastered the latter one...

Learning how to clap her hands was a 2 week journey...

Learning the "touchdown" signal, a 2 month journey...

Learning how to sit independently, an 8 month journey...

With each thing Cayman learns, the joy that follows that journey is a complete amplified experience of deliriously happy emotions. This type of joy is incomparable to anything I have ever experienced before! There is so much excitement and charm everyday in raising a child like Cayman. A child that needs extra care and help in accomplishing much of life's adventures. It's definitely not convenient and that was the part that worried me a lot when I was pregnant with her but it's not even close to what my mind thought "Holland" would be like. It's way better than any of my expectations of "Italy" even.

I am filled with gratitude to be in the very spot that I am as a mother.

And yesterday was yet another moment when we wept with joy as Cayman finally learned how to drink from a sippy cup after a seven month journey. (Pictures of that coming soon!)

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.

Photo by Kim Fordham Photography