Welcome to Holland

I had been thinking about this "essay" last week and then my Mom mentioned it to me in an email this morning so I thought I would share it. I think sometimes if Sarah had been born a typical child what I would have missed that I now have experienced and I wouldn't make the trade. But it still makes me sad to think of the girl I will never meet. I can't stay in that thought for long though because then I hear a little delightful squeal from the girl I DO know and it no longer matters. Maybe this is all too cryptic. That is not my intent. I am trying to focus on the blessing Sarah brings. She has touched so many lives. She brings the experience of loving and caring for a disabled individual to lives that may not have been touched by disability otherwise. In spite of the challenges that come along with it I am enjoying raising Sarah more than I could ever have imagined. One of the points I am touched by from the poem is that it takes a while and you have to catch your breath in order to start enjoying the change in plans. Very true. Sometimes I still forget that and also if I spend too much time mourning the loss of what I thought I would have I will not have time to enjoy what I do have.
Enjoy the essay.....


WELCOME TO HOLLAND

byEmily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved


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.