Welcome to Holland

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.

Emily
Perl Kingsley  1987