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.

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.

When youre going to have a baby, its like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy.

You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum.

Michelangelos David. The gondolas in Venice. You may even learn some handy

phrases in Italian. Its 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! Im

supposed to be In Italy. All my life Ive dreamed of going to Italy.”

But theres been a change in the flight plan. Theyve landed in Holland and there you

must stay. The important thing is that they havent taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence. famine and disease. Its 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.

Its just a different place. Its slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after

youve 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 theyre all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, thats where I was supposed to go. Thats what I had planned.” And 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 didnt get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

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Ms. Kingsley is the author of the inspirational essay “Welcome To Holland” which has been reprinted in many languages and in many forms all over the world. Dear Abby runs this piece every October to commemorate National Down Syndrome Awareness Month and it has been reprinted in Chicken Soup For The Mothers Soul. It has been used as the theme for several disability conferences, was worked into a patchwork quilt and is the subject of a series of oil paintings. It was recently set to music as a choral piece by composer Terrence Minogue and was performed at a concert in Sacramento, California.

This information was provided in the biography about Ms. Kingsley found at:

http://www.kirstimd.com/kingsley.htm (Links to an external site.)

Go to this website if you would like to read more about Ms. Kingsley.

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