As with many of the things I've shared on the blog, This is an item that a professor I had at UK shared with me. I have never forgotten it and it has really impacted the way that I think about what it would be like to find out that my child has a disability.
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily 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.
I have heard this before, but thanks for sharing again. I love looking at it this way!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteIt is a wonderful analogy.
That is a really interesting way of looking at that. I mean, and it's truly how it is. You just need another guide book, but it can still be a wonderful experience. (:
ReplyDeleteI read this in my SED intro class its great!
ReplyDeleteI love this! It gives you a different perspective on things and puts something into words that's really hard to convey.
ReplyDeleteI like the image this creates, and the perspective that it gives. I think it would be a useful thing for everyone, not just parents of children who have disabilities, and it could a building block to help people become more aware and more understanding of different disabilities.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example! I never thought of it this way, but it does illustrate how many people feel. They have prepared all their lives for one thing, just to be bombarded with a new "flight plan" at the last minute. But the experiences they will have greatly outweigh the plans that they have "missed".
ReplyDelete