A Mother's Love

I love being a mother. More than anything in this world. I love when my kids want to give me hugs and kisses. I love when Brynnley asks to give me a big kiss and asks to me to have a picnic with her. I love when Carson gets so excited to show me something new, I love that he still will hold my hand when we walk out of his school together. I love when McKay's eyes light up and he kicks his feet every single time he sees me. I love being a Mom.
I admit being a mother has changed for me in the past year. McKay has changed our lives for the better. But he does require a lot more attention, appointments and work than my other kids did at this age. I still daily have to come to terms with McKay's condition. I can remember the first time it hit me really hard. We had been home from the NICU for a couple of months and we got a letter in the mail addressed to the Parents of McKay Ford. I opened it it and it was for a doctors appointment, but it was from the "State of Utah : Children with Special Needs". There was something about seeing it in writing in front of me. My baby has special needs. Will he always have special needs, most likely but we really don't know.
We had to say good bye to one of McKay's specialists/therapists this week. She is moving to a different area of Kids on the Move. I thought I had a couple more years before I would have to say good bye. It was hard, she has been such a huge part of our lives, and knows McKay better than a lot of people do. She told me about an Essay that a mother of a special needs child had written. She told me to look it up. It left me in tears and emotional. It so perfectly describes how I feel. I have posted it below if you would like to read.
Happy Mother's day to all of the Mom's out there. All the mom's know it is incredibly hard work and not always a job full of thanks. But what an amazing opportunity and experience it is.

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.