Welcome To Holland
by
Emily Pearl Kingsley


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 guidebooks and make your
wonderful plans. The coliseum.
The Michaelangelo'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 flight attendant comes 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 guidebooks.
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,
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 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.