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 Sistine Chapel, Gondolas. You may learn some
handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting. After several 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 guidebooks. 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. You begin
to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. And 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
experience will never, ever, ever, go away. The loss of that dream is a
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.
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We love to read your comments and encouragements! Messages to Aimee are always welcome too. I will definitely read them to her. :)
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