Music to my Soul

December 23, 2008

Music to my Soul

Waverly has started saying her name again. We thought we had lost that word forever and then the past few days she has been saying "Wavey" and "Waverly" a few times a day. Such a beautiful sound. I have to get it on tape!!

Comments

Mike and Sarah said…

Sounds like the perfect Christmas gift! Great job, Waverly!

December 23, 2008 at 7:45 PM

Rachel said…

Praise God!

December 24, 2008 at 7:04 AM

Anonymous said…

I am so happy for you. I know that this is a better Christmas gift than anything else you could receive. I will continue to pray for you and your children :)

Stephanie in Portland, Oregon

December 24, 2008 at 8:09 AM

Andrea said…

This brought tears to my eyes. What a wonderful Christmas present! Wishing you a very blessed celebration this year!

Andrea (Bowerman) Hoover

December 24, 2008 at 9:24 AM

Anonymous said…

I agree, what a wonderful Christmas gift! She is so beautiful and Oliver too. I continue to pray for you and your family every day, Shannon. God bless you and Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Jan

December 24, 2008 at 11:00 AM

Welcome 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 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.