Welcome to Holland!
I was about to reply to a wonderful post on a great blog that I follow called Dad-O-Matic. As any reader of my blog can attest I am first and foremost in my life a family man. I am a proud dad and grandfather and pretty much everything else is secondary to that. Anyone out there that has that feeling, I definitely highly recommend to follow Dad-O-Matic. I instead decided this would be a great post for my blog and I would link to it in a comment on the Dad-O-Matic blog because it is so meaningful and there is a member of my family I hope that reads it.
I read this years ago and honestly at that time had no direct relation to anyone I knew as I really did not know anyone raising a child with a disability. Today I know of a family that I hope enjoys it and a member of my family that I hope so as well.
One thing I hope both remember is there must be a feeling of “Why me?” that comes along with having a child with a disability, at least for a moment. As much as a great person and loving parent that you may be, that has to come into the head of any rational adult at the time of learning this. I am fortunate and blessed enough to not have this situation directly but in my opinion, the answer is this:
This child needs you. Not the other person that you don’t know. Not the neighbor. Not the millionaire with a PHD. You, and only you. That is why you have this child. Because only you can raise this child to be the best person they can be. That is what they are looking to you for, and why you were blessed with this exact child exactly how they are.
As an outsider to the situation, I hope this is received well and helpful to any who read it.
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WELCOME TO HOLLAND
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.
by: Emily Perl Kingsley
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Anthony