Happy Fifth Birthday Anders

A couple of days ago would have been my son, Anders' fifth birthday. I can't ever get over that he's not here. A huge chunk of all our lives is missing. I see my son Leif talking to Elsa, trying to give her a doll & it hurts to think someone should have been doing that for him, but Leif never got to meet Anders. A whole part of their lives does not exist. Now, we can only make the best with the new lives we have, but it is never that easy to go on without him. When someone dies so young, we always want to believe they were going to be so happy, perfect & the best of everything. We just want to give them the chance in our minds, that they never had in their short lives. It seems like yesterday, but a lifetime ago. To never know

He didn't have a disability, but this made me think of him, in a way. It is hard to compare exactly. Of those moments that I will never have & I won't be understood by all those going to "Italy" because I have no idea what "Italy" is.

A Trip To Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley
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 have NOT 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.

When a parent dies, you lose your past; when a child dies, you lose your future. - Anonymous

A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But...there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that's how awful the loss is! - Neugeboren 1976