Life in Holland: Overwhelming Kindness

Friday, December 10, 2010

Overwhelming Kindness

I don't even know how to begin to tell you how emotional yesterday made me. I took Anna for her physical therapy evaluation. I'll get to that part later. While we were there Anna fell in love with a Tricycle they had there. It is called an Amtryke. They are bikes for special needs kids. They cost anywhere from $350-800. There is just no way we could afford it. It would help Anna so much though. It makes both sides of the brain really work together. The sweet PT has donated one to Anna and it will be under the tree from Santa on Christmas morning. I cannot tell you what this means to us. It is so hard to not be able to afford all of the things that might help my child overcome her special needs. We are so blessed to have such amazing people in our path and in our lives. I want to update on Anna's PT evaluation and her new AFOs but I will not take away from the awesomeness of this post so that update will come later.

1 comment:

TonyaDecember 10, 2010 at 10:59 AM
That is so awesome.
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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.