Every year around Christmas time, I start looking ahead to the
New Year by promising myself to get more organized. I've been
sorting through some of my accumulated "stuff" over the last little
while, and in one of my many file folders, I came upon this neat
little story. It's written by a parent of a child with autism, but
I think most parents dealing with special needs kids can relate to
the message. In the spirit of the season, I thought I would share
this with you.
Welcome to Holland
by Emily Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child
with autism -- 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,
Michelangelo, David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some
handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of
preparation, 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 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 guidebooks. 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 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 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 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 special, the very lovely things about Holland.
