Welcome to Holland

I wonder if you have read or heard of this piece before?

It has been in my mind lately for many reasons.


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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 are going to have a baby, it is like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks 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 flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I am supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

Nevertheless, there's been a change in the flight plan. They have landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they have not 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. You must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

Its just a different place. Its 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. Moreover, 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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Its true. Some families only ever get to speak Italian. They never think twice about it.

Some commute back and forth from Italy (that can be very confusing). An Italian kid and a Dutch kid in the same family. Some of us have Dutch uncles :)

We become bilingual. Its a talent. An art. Not one we aspired to from an early age, but still...

For those who find themselves in Holland - welcome to the club.

And congratulations to my little Dutchie, my little spekulaas, for landing a job. Woo-hoo!

I wouldn't change you for all the pasta in the world.