This week has seen the cremation of two very special people.
The first was a wonderful lady whose bravery and kindness touched everyone who knew her. She died of cancer at the age of 76 and had bravely proved the doctors wrong when they’d only given her three months to live some two years earlier.
She and husband John were devoted to each other and her loss will leave a huge hole in his daily life, especially as he’d been such a wonderful carer to her.
The second death was very unexpected and much more sudden.
A young physically disabled lad with additional special needs sadly passed away just before Christmas.
I’ve known him since he was a very small child and despite his problems, he was always incredibly cheerful. Simon loved to sing and was a real character who loved Karaoke.
He and my autistic son went to the same school and Simon came to Jodi’s eighteenth birthday party.
When your child has special needs, life changes dramatically. Any plans you may have had in the past go out of the window, and your life takes a very different direction.
Now, Simon’s parents will find themselves having to change direction again and just as with any loss, it won’t be easy.
It will be particularly difficult for them because they had to do so much for their son physically and since his birth they’ve never really experienced what most people would consider a “normal” life.
I couldn’t attend the funeral because of other commitments , but apparently this moving story was read out.
It’s by Emily Perl Kingsley, explains what it’s like to raise a child with a disability and is called –
Welcome To Holland
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy.
You buy a bunch of guidebooks 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 some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease.
It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. 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 pace 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 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.”
The pain of that will never,ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a 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.
It’s something for you to think about in your own life.
Make the most of what you have and cherish every moment.
Take care
Jean
A few months ago I travelled to Newcastle to attend a workshop run by one of the most respected marketers online.
