Saturday, May 25, 2013

Holland Cont.


I found this poem on another girls blog but I do not know who originally posted it. Of course it's touching as I deal everyday with the roller coaster of emotions of Liam and Fragile X and how it's changed our lives forever. I wonder if I will ever just feel okay with everything?  Some days are good and some not so much.  As me and John are in praying and waiting to see if we will blessed with another baby...I too wonder what it will be like for Liam to have a sibling. I think Liam will be a great big brother and it will be good for him to have a brother or a sister. To have a typically developing child....will it make me ache even more for Liam to be "typical"? To see what comes so easily for most kids that Liam has to work so incredibly hard at? Our sweet little Liam. I love you. 
Of course...
There are the days that I wouldn’t trade Holland for the world
The days that I stand in awe of the windmills’ quaint majesty
And marvel at the overwhelming beauty of the tulip fields
There are the days that I scoff at Italy
The days that I feel downright sorry for those who have never been to Holland
Never wondered at the beauty created by Rembrandt’s brush
What they are missing here, I tell myself
Poor souls!
How much richer they’d be for a visit someday
For a walk in these wooden shoes
**
And then there are the days that I look more closely at the Dutch landscape
The days that I see past the tulip fields to the mothers wringing their hands, waiting – always waiting
The days that I see the doctors – the specialists and therapists – everywhere it seems, filling the streets, doffing their caps as they move from one house to the next – an endless conveyor belt of service and need
There are the days that I see the siblings, struggling with dual citizenship in two dramatically different nations – neither of which they can fully claim as their own
There are the days that I can no longer smell the fragrance of the flowers for the stench of desperation and fear
The days that I send my girls off on the train, backpacks full with supplies for their daily trip to Italy
Knowing that only one of them speaks a word of Italian
Relying on a host of translators and guides to keep my youngest safe on such desperately foreign soil
There are the days that my heart simply breaks because I can’t make the whole world speak Dutch
There are the days that I watch the planes flying in – filled with mothers clutching their children, looking out the window, ready to point to the Spanish Steps and the Colosseum – knowing they’ll find out soon enough, that’s not where they are
There are the days when I wonder if my son even notices the windmills, or the tulips – if he knows there are Rembrandts here
Or if he simply wishes that he were in Rome
**
There are the days that I see my Holland for what it really is
A breathtakingly beautiful place
A place full of love and compassion
Freedom and camaraderie
And a place where children hurt and mothers’ hearts ache with the impotence of not being able to make it better
-Unknown-

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