Blogland, Holland, and Siberia

Blogland is a dangerous place. And now with a site meter I am spending way too much time, on unmotivated days, looking at my site meter, seeing who is reading my blog, where they came to my blog from, and how long they are there. Then I go to the pages where people came from to see what they are like -- a lot of them blogs.

I came across a blog that referred to this poem.

There is apparently a lot of controversy as to whether or not this is a good analogy. Some people think it is wonderful, others think it is absolutely awful to act as if having a child with special needs, like autism, or bipolar, is just like another country . . . not better or worse.

I found this interesting, because as adoptive parents we choose children with special needs. We plan a trip to Holland, using the analogy of the poem.

When I began public speaking regarding adoption, I started talking to groups of people about being willing to “march into hell for a heavenly cause.” I decided that to present an awful scenario would be realistic and that maybe families would end up finding their lives to be better than they had anticipated, instead of worse.

I guess since then I have tried to prepare a tourist guide to Siberia. Using the word hell brings up too much religious controversy, but Siberia, I hear, is one of the worst places on earth one can go.

As adoptive parents, we don’t sign up for Italy and end up in Holland, like the families of children who enter families by birth. Some of us, who are poorly trained, plan on Holland, and find ourselves in Siberia. My plan is to prepare families for Siberia and they might find out that it isn’t as bad as they thought it would be.

The interesting piece is that even though we refer to Siberia often as a horrible place to be, there are surprises there. It may be awfully cold and in places very primitive, but one tourism website proclaims:

“Lake Baikal in Siberia is one of the most awesome lakes on earth. It is the oldest lake, the deepest lake, becoming deeper every year. "One who has seen Baikal will be captured and is drawn to return, even if only in dreams."

So my bottom line is this. We never expected Italy, even if we were poorly trained. But we might have expected Holland. Truth is, we’re in Siberia, but even in Siberia, there are secret places of beauty and deep contentment if we look for them.