West Bountiful, Utah
Saylor O'brien is an extraordinary young lady. Before I tell you about her, a little back story is needed, so please indulge me. I promise you it will be worth your time.
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.
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Saylor has special needs, as you can surmise, that is what makes her so special. I wrote about her some time ago and how she so profoundly influenced my life. She has blessed not only her exceptional family, but a much wider circle through her acts of service, which I suspect she doesn't even know she is doing. She has touched the lives of so many others. I invite you to read about her here with the BYU football team and at a special needs rodeo. If you want, if you can, please read more about her remarkable life at what I titled "Mom, it's okay" on her mother's blog. WARNING: YOU WILL NEED A BOX OF TISSUE.
When you have, ask yourself this: Who is serving whom?
1 comment:
A few years ago I had the great privledge of serving in the South Jordan and Riverton Utah Special Needs Mutual. In the mutual we have young Laurels & Priests assigned to be the friend of a special needs for the year. In November we were having our special activity which was a testimony meeting. The thing about that meeting was that the only ones that were to bear a testimony were the special needs members of the mutual. That night Jareds friend wasn't there so I filled in for the night. Jared was if I remember correctly 17 years old. When he was I believe 3 or 4 he had been hit by a car. He now is in a wheel chair where he lays. When spoken to by us at mutual you got no response. He just sat back in the chair with his mouth open and seemed to stare into space. That night as the meeting went on Jared would periodically twitch for a minute or so. I was really concerned. His mother had never said anything to us about him having seisures. I was concerned that that was what he was having. At the end of the evening when Jared's mother came to pick him up I told her what had happened and how I wondered if he was having seisures. She told me that he doesn't have seisures but that is what he does when he gets excited. Jared was feeling the spirit and getting excited by the testimonies born that night. I always think do we "normal" people get excited when we are in fast and testmony meeting? I think we are the handicaped ones because too often we aren't close enough to the spirit to feel what Jared felt. Everytime I think of this experience I am so humbled to have been allowed to spend 2 years serving these Celestial brothers and sisters or ours.
Tom Allen
South Jordan, Utah
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