The Trip To Holland

Welcome to Holland!
Emily Perl Kingley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with adisability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experienceto 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 vacationtrip-to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans.The Coliseum...Michelangelo's David...the gondolas of Venice. You may learnsome handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.

You pack yourbags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardesscomes 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 of plans," says the stewardess. "They've landedin Holland and there you must stay.

"The important thing is that you haven't landed in a horrible, disgusting,filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It' just a differentplace.So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole newlanguage. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would neverhave met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy thanItaly. But after you have been there awhile and you catch your breath, youlook around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland hastulips, Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're allbragging about what a wonderful time they had there.

And for the rest ofyour life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That'swhere I had planned."And the pain of that will never, ever go away because the loss of that dreamwas 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 and lovely things aboutHolland.