It is well known that, for children, stories are a source of information where they learn infinite things and entertain themselves; for parents they are a great help to get children to better understand values, obligations, sadness and joy. Therefore, today I am going to act as a storyteller and show you a story to reflect on a subject that I have been talking about for several days.
The story I'm talking about is Emily Pearl Kinsgley. It probably doesn't sound like anything. But if I talk about Sesame Street, it might help you a little. Emily is a screenwriter of the famous television show, and is the mother of a child with Down syndrome.
On many occasions they asked him to describe what the experience of raising and educating a child with special needs was like. To do this, he wrote a story and, in this way, help people who have not gone through such a special experience to understand and imagine how it is.
When you're waiting for a child, it's like planning a wonderful vacation trip to Italy. You buy a lot of travel guides and make wonderful plans: the Colosseum, Michelangelo's David, the Venice gondolas ... You even learn some useful phrases in Italian. Everything is very exciting.After months of waiting with hope, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and go on a trip. A few hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes and tells you:
- Welcome to Holland
- Holland? - you say. What do you mean by Holland? I hired a trip to Italy! I would have to be in Italy! All my life I have dreamed of going to Italy!
But there has been a change in the travel plan. They have landed in Holland and you have to stay there. The most important thing is that they have not taken you to a horrible, disgusting place, full of bad smells, hunger and disease. It is simply a different place.
Therefore, you have to go out and buy new travel guides. And you must learn a completely new language. And you will meet totally new people, that you would never have met. It is simply a different place. It is quieter than Italy, less exciting than Italy. But after having spent some time there and regaining your breath, you look around and start to realize that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
At the same time, all the people you know around you are very busy coming and going from Italy, and they are all bragging about how much fun they have had there. And for the rest of your life, you will tell yourself:
- Yes, that's where I should have gone. That is what I had planned
And the pain will never, never disappear altogether, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.
But if you spend your life lamenting the fact that you have not been able to visit Italy, you may never feel free enough to enjoy the special and charming things Holland has.
Emily explains (following at all times with the metaphor of the story) that she has been in Holland for more than a decade and that it has become her home. He has had time to catch his breath, to settle down and accommodate himself, and to accept something different from what he had planned.
Reflect on the newly arrived years in Holland: the emotional blow, fear, anger, pain and uncertainty. During those early years, he tried to return to Italy, as he had planned, but it was in Holland where he should remain.
The tour of that new place meant working hard, buying new travel guides, learning a new language and slowly finding your way into that new land.
He met different people whose initial plans changed, as did his own, and with whom he could share experiences supporting each other and becoming very special friends.
Some of these travel companions had been in Holland for longer than her and turned out to be veteran guides who helped her at all times along the way. The most important thing is that they have seen him see that Holland was not so bad.
Over the years, I have wondered what his life would have been like if he had landed in Italy, just as he had planned. Would have been easier? Would it have been so enriching? Would you have learned some of the important lessons you have come to assimilate?
It is true that this trip has been more challenging and has sometimes kicked and exclaimed in protest and out of frustration (and may even do so). Holland is at a slower pace and is less striking than Italy.
But thanks to this he has learned to slow down and look more closely, gaining a new appreciation of the remarkable beauties of Holland, with its tulips, windmills and Rembrandt's works.
Emily, like many families, has become a world traveler and has discovered that
it doesn't matter where you land, since the most important thing is what you can do on the trip
I can not add anything else to this story so special and that contemplates, in the most precious way one can imagine, the feelings of so many families who have gone through a similar situation.
