| 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 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 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 has 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
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 for a while 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."
The pain of that loss will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of
that dream is 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, very lovely things about
Holland. | 
Welcome To Holland