Roadmap to Holland

I went to a writing conference in Mendocino a while back where I heard an author from Florida say, were he to live and write overlooking the northern California coastline, the weather would have to be a major character in every one of his stories.

He’d probably say the same of the setting in Jennifer Graf Groneberg's memoir, Roadmap to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son’s First Two years With Down Syndrome. The winding road that leads up to the house on the hill where Jennifer lives with her husband and three boys, overlooking the lake surrounded by the Mission Mountains, Blacktail Peak, the Swan and Whitefish Ranges are as much a part of this story as the narrator and Avery, her son with DS.

I met Jennifer through the wonderful world of blogging. I’ve learned some about her life through posts at Pinwheels and columns at Parent Dish, Mamazine, and Literary Mama. Every time I read her writing I find myself breathing more deeply. I love the way she observes her life. It helps me slow down and notice more in my own life.

The title refers to piece written by Emily Pearl Kingsley called Welcome to Holland. Kingsley likens the experience of preparing to have a baby to planning a fabulous trip to Italy and the experience of finding out your child has a disability to being told your plane has landed in Holland. Holland may be slower, a bit less flashy but no less wonderful.

A roadmap implies a journey, going from one place to another, new place and this is what happens in this book. The narrator takes us with her from her twins’ premature emergency cesarean, her days in the neonatal intensive care unit, the homecoming of one son and then the other, and through moments in the first two years of Avery and Bennet’s life with their older brother, Carter.

I trust this narrator, trust that as she takes me along on this journey, she will carefully describe what she sees as she unearths recollections and memories like an archeologist. I feel her own trust in herself, that as unwieldy as this all feels to her, she will find her way.

And I appreciate the message of a journey, of someone sharing what she went through to arrive at a place of peace, so that other mothers who give birth to children that have Down syndrome or anything outside the typical know it’s okay if they feel grief at first, if "at first it hurts to breath" the title of her first chapter. It’s doesn’t make them wrong or broken, doesn’t make their family broken, their children broken, their mother instincts broken. I appreciate that she shows us that we can go through dark feelings, anger, shame, sadness, fear, and it doesn’t break our love.

I was moved by so much of this story. I loved the connection between the twins, between Bennett and Avery, the way Bennett insisted on climbing into Avery’s crib to be with him. I loved the connection Carter felt to his brothers, his protectiveness, natural and matter of fact.

I loved the support and love of the family, Jennifer’s husband, his parents, and most of her friends. I was angered by Cathy, the neighbor who abandons the friendship and impressed with how Jennifer turned her attention and focus to where she needed and wanted it to be, with her child, and not on convincing someone there was no reason to leave or fear.

I loved hearing of the words Jennifer and Carter wrote on the walls in the babies’ room before fresh paint engulfed them. These words disappeared from view but knowing they lay beneath the paint seem to soothe, like benevolent spirits whispering their messages of love.

I loved the scene of Jennifer stepping into the water by the lake when the babies were still in the ICU, her life as mother to three boys now begun and not begun, her self split between her home and the two hour drive to the hospital where she’d deliver bags of freshly pumped breast milk and hold her babies surrounded by the steady and oppressive hum of the HVAC. She writes of this surrender in the lake that day: “I spread my arms wide, suspended, holding my breath, the difference between floating and drowning merely a matter of inches.”

Her writing is lovely, rich with detail. You feel as if she has taken your arm and lovingly led you into her home to look through in each room, at her beautiful boys, at the thick file of information and forms having to do with Avery's care that once sat on her microwave, out the window to the ever-changing waters of the lake held in the protective arms of the mountains.

Here’s one scene toward the end of the book between the narrator and a fellow writer under a summer night. They have just left a meeting of their Wild Horses Writing group where Jennifer read a paragraph she had written about Avery’s birth and wept. The friend, a healer, asked if she could give Jennifer something and has brought outside by her car:

“She dabs some of the liquid from the jar on her index finger, then taps each of my earlobes. I’m enveloped in fragrance–the white lilacs blooming in the moonlight. The heady peonies. Sun-dried cotton pillowcases. My grandmother’s kitchen in the mornings.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“Forgiveness” she says.

Soon after, for reasons unknown, fireworks fill the sky:

“When the fireworks end, the silence is round and full and perfect like the moon as it rises over the mountains to the east. I can’t think of any reason for there to be fireworks on an ordinary Thursday evening, a night like any other, except on this night, I was forgiven.”

That’s what the story is for me: a love story of longing and forgiveness. A woman yearns for something–one more child, and out of that comes a tumble of events that she could not have imagined and cannot control, twins, premature delivery, Down syndrome. We all have experiences like that, innocently picking a flower and falling into the hole that opens up in its place. Like anything transformative, we temporarily lose our way. If we’re lucky, we emerge with stronger spirits and the ability to forgive ourselves for anything that delayed our reunion with what, somewhere, we always knew to be true.

Jennifer Graf Groneberg has emerged with both, an unequivocal gratitude for and pride in her son, and a marvelous, heartfelt book to boot.

This post was sponsored by MotherTalk.

As always, I have a copy to give away. I'll announce the winner on Friday!

Comments

[Marla]

This book sounds great. I can't wait to read it.

[delilah]

This books sounds like a must-read!

[Adi]

Oops, typo: coach - couch

[Adi]

So many books, so little time. I wish I could just snuggle into a coach with a mug of hot chocolate every single morning of my life with this big heap of books next to me, and read read read all the time. This is on my to-buy-and-then-to-make-time-to-read list. Thanks for sharing.

[Karen in CA]

I won a contest that you sponsored before, so I don't want to be a book hog...but I will definitely seek this one out on my own! Thanks for the great review! xo

[tulipmom]

You've convinced me that I must read this book.

[kristen]

Wonderful review, Kyra. Thanks for sharing Jennifer's words (and the story behind the cover photo...I had no idea).

[Michelle O.]

Beautiful review Kyra!

[Dimitra]

I want one! I want one! :)

[~ danielle]

only powerful writing can bring such wonderful images through with such tangibility... mmm, can't wait to read it.

[Christine]

I've been avoiding books lately that make me cry. I suspect this one might do that. But having been a lurker at Pinwheels for over a year now, I'd read anything Jennifer writes. So count me in for the drawing :-)

[niksmom]

A beautiful review of a very heartfelt and moving book (I am halfway through my own copy now...so toss Drama Mama's name in for mine?? Is that fair?). I feel the same way after reading Jennifer's writing...I breathe a bit deeper and slower; I take in more of the world around me.

[drama mama]

GORGEOUS review. Can't wait to read it.

Here I am, waving my exhausted little arm in the air. I am here, I am here (to quote Suess) and wanting to be part of your drawing!

[jennifergrafgroneberg]

Thank you for this beautiful, heartfelt review. It means so much to me--your life with Fluffy, and your beautiful writing about it has long been an inspiration to me. Thank you.

[kyra]

yes! you're absolutely right about the cover photo! here's a link to the backstory:

http://mother-talk.com/wp/?p=320

[Anamaria]

You write beautiful reviews, Kyra: thank you for this one. I love the cover image of this book, too (I read somewhere that it was snapped when her son first walked into her arms?).