When I first found out that Cody had Down syndrome, I turned straight to the internet to learn about it and search for other families that had children with Down syndrome.
One of the first things I found was “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley.
Here are my favorite excerpts from Welcome to Holland:
“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…Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.”
“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.”
Those are the lines that helped calmed the negative voices in my head.
Those were the words that told me that I needed to change the way I viewed the diagnosis.
They were exactly what I needed to hear.
The road we have gone down is different than I had anticipated, but it’s still flashy. It still is beautiful. It still helps me build memories that I will never forget nor want to forget.
It has gray skies, but the sun always finds its way back.
It has road blocks, detours and u-turns, but it always leads me to a path that is even better than the last.
It has people that try to ruin our trip, but for every one of “those” people there are 10 others to guide us and show us the beauty to be found.
To quote the theme song of one of my favorite shows from my childhood:
When the world never seems
to be living up to your dreams
it's time you started finding out
what everything is all about
…
You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.
…
You got the future in the palm of your hands
all you gotta do to get you through is understand
you think you rather do without,
you will never make without the truth
the facts of life is all about you
----------------
Whether you’re rolling your eyes at me (heehee) or singing the song in your head, you have to admit that the lyrics deserve a “true dat!”.
This might not be the path we thought we were going on, but it IS the path we were given and we are going to make it a fun, fulfilling, loving path lined with flowers, rainbows and unicorns. Yup, unicorns. :)
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