Going to Holland

December of 2002 was when we really started to understand that Kinley was going to have some significant challenges for the rest of her life.  That realization landed on our psyche like a ton of bricks and we didn’t know how to handle it.  “What to do when your 2-1/2 year old stops walking, starts having seizures, and her brain MRI shows cerebellar atrophy” wasn’t a chapter in any of the parenting books we had picked up along the way.  Experts told us we were going through a grieving process and that it was natural to have all the feelings we were experiencing at that time.  Anger, denial, fear, sadness, etc were all present and accounted for if you had taken a daily emotional roll call back then.  However for some reason it was still difficult to express to our friends and family how we were feeling.  We were really grasping for something to give us perspective and help us move forward with a positive outlook.   Someone shared the following story with us called “Welcome to Holland” and it was amazing.

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987.  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.

Sometimes I still dream about Italy.  Like when I’m at the rec center running on the track that overlooks the gym and I see girls Kinley’s age running up and down the court at basketball practice.  Or when I drive by softball fields in the summer and girls are playing ball while their parents sip cold drinks and watch from their lawn chairs.  I’m sure there are wonderful ballet lessons and piano recitals in Italy as well.  But then I remember that I am in Holland and it truly is a beautiful place that God has chosen for me.  It has its own great activities and experiences to enjoy and I have found that you really can have a blast here too.