I read this the other day and it really touched me.  Although I'm not a parent, I struggled with similar issues when I first started working in a classroom of autistic/special needs students.  When I graduated college I had in my mind a picture of what my teaching career would look like.  The reality of my life is very different.  I've had to go slower and have far different expectations of my students.  The progress I've seen has seemed nonexistent at times, yet looking back it is, without a doubt, profound.  I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did.

 

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

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.

Tribute

I will never forget hearing my mom tell me that John was missing, nor his memorial service that I went to almost a month later. 

 

Firefighter Jonathan Hohmann
Haz-Mat Co. 1

Memorial Service was held
on Sunday, October 7, 2001

Firefighter Devoted to Family, Faith Nov. 28, 2001

Jonathan R. Hohmann knew there were risks as a firefighter, but he also had faith that if anything were to happen to him he would be with God. That thought has been a source of comfort to his wife, Rosemarie, since her husband died, along with about 18 of his comrades, responding to the call to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. In his 13 years with the fire department, the 48-year-old Staten Island native moved up the ranks until he eventually joined Hazardous Materials Co. 1 in Queens. Although he left for work each morning at 5 a.m., he remained devoted to his church, his wife and his sons. When he wasn’t working, he spent time with his sons, bowling with Matthew, 14, or watching 11-year-old Gregory play basketball. The Sunday before the attack, the Hohmann family, with their dog, Scooter, spent the day in Wolfe's Pond Park, a memory his wife said she will cherish. --Compiled by Newsday

SI Advance Article