Holland

Welcome to Holland
By Emily Pearl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability. 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 wonderful plans – the Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice . You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. All very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later the plan lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland ." " Holland ?" you say. "What do you mean Holland ? I signed up for Italy . All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy ." But there has been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland 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 have never met.
It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy , less flashy than Italy . But after you've been there awhile 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."
But if you spend the rest of your life mourning the fact you didn't get to Italy , you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland .