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Trevor

(Written October 1998)

It was 1990 and I had been retired from my job at the Daily Breeze for two years already. Six of our seven children were married and the seventh one was working toward a law degree in faraway New Mexico. So, for the most part, I was able to enjoy the relaxed pace in peace and quiet.

Our married offspring had already produced four beautiful, healthy grandchildren for me to love and spoil to my heart’s content. I was often heard to say that if I had known my grandkids were going to be so much fun, I would have had them first. So in the spring of 1990, Bill and I were very happy to hear that our son Mark, and his wife Susy, would be having their first baby, our fifth grandchild, in October.

Mark was our number three son. He had a Master’s Degree in Environmental Engineering and was gainfully employed at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. However, his greatest love was surfing – and we all know that surfers are not workaholics. So it was not too surprising to us when, shortly after his marriage in May 1989, he quit his job and took his bride on a yearlong honeymoon to exotic South Pacific islands where the surf was always "up" and where Susy, his wife, got pregnant.

They called us with this exciting news on Easter. They were in Australia by then, staying with Susy’s aunt and cousins. Susy’s relatives recommended a reliable obstetrician who verified Susy’s condition and said everything was just fine. Mark told us they would be home in late summer in plenty of time for the baby’s October arrival. During their absence they had rented out their San Pedro condo. So when they arrived home they would move in with us for "just a little while". (This "little while" turned out to be two years). Oh well, we had plenty of room, and it would be nice to have a baby in the house again. One can stand just so much peace and quiet.

On October 13th, 1990 our new grandson Trevor Samson Smith arrived on the scene – and our world was turned completely upside down. From the very beginning we knew something was dreadfully wrong with this little fellow. Trevor was born with a myriad of medical problems. Chief among these was significant abnormalities in brain development. Subsequent brain scans indicated a missing corpus collasum, which is the network of nerves connecting the left and right sides of the brain.

The doctors said he could not live very long – maybe a week, a month, or at the very most, a year. As I write this now (October 1998) Trevor has just had his 8th birthday. He cannot walk or talk, or even sit up or hold up his head. He is blind inasmuch as his brain registers no recognition of what he sees. He is fed through a tube in his stomach. The only normal thing about him is his hearing which is very sharp indeed. His growth is just about average for an eight-year-old boy. I don’t think he knows how to cry – he never does. If he is in pain, or hungry, or distressed by dirty diapers, he emits moans which become louder and more frequent as the situation demands. On the other hand, he makes soft cooing sounds when he recognizes a familiar voice.

We were still reeling from Trevor’s tragic condition, when just six weeks after his birth our next grandson David James Harding was born to our daughter Rosemary and her husband Jim. We had known for several months that this was a Spina Bifida baby – paralyzed from the waist down. Even knowing this ahead of time did little to soften the blow of realizing the hardships and sufferings that lay ahead for this beautiful boy and his family.

In the October 29, 1990 edition of the Los Angeles Times there was a letter written by the mother of a severely handicapped child. It appeared in the "Dear Abby" column and read as follows:

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared this unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. Well, it’s like this...

When you are going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make wonderful plans. 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 and the flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland". "Holland?!?", you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy".

But there’s been a change in the flight plan and they’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. You must learn a whole new language. 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 awhile and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has many lovely things – tulips, windmills, even Rembrandts.

But all your friends are busy coming and going from Italy, and bragging about the 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.

 

[Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley. Copyright © 1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All Rights Reserved.]