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 trip to Italy.
You buy a bunch of guidebooks
and make your wonderful plans.
The gondolas in Venice.
You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.
It's all very exciting.
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 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 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 awhile 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 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 going. 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.
copyright Emily Perl Kingsley
All Rights Reserved
photos were found via google search engine
*originally posted on String of Pearls 11/14/09
*originally posted on String of Pearls 11/14/09
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