Welcome to Holland
by: Emily Perl Kingsley (1987)
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. Michelangelo's 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.
3 comments:
This made me cry! What a wonderful story and it puts the whole experience in perspective. Our lives have been enriched by that little boy. He is so much bigger than any disability that he might have. I am proud to be his grandmother
Love,
Mom/Nonna
I love this analogy! How wonderful! In a small way (and not at all to the extent of all the things you've been through), this analogy feels a little like what it's like to struggle through infertility. All your friends around you are easily planning their "trip" & setting off on grand adventures & you are there alone in the airport waiting for your turn. Then it's finally your turn and pregnancy and motherhood are nothing like what you thought and what other "regular" families are like. But we are all so blessed with the trips we are on. Even if it's not what we had planned :-) Love ya girl!
I totally agree Kelly!!! I didn't even think of it that way, but it definitely fits! I'm so thankful for the way things have worked out for all of us. Everything definitely happens for a reason...it makes us who we are and better people because of it. :)
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