WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl 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 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 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... 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.
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