As the parent of a profoundly disabled child I have always found Emily Kingsley's description here both moving and easy to relate to.  Perhaps you will too. 


Emily Perl Kingsley extract A Trip to Holland: 

“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... 

“After several 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. 

“…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. You begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. And Holland even has Rembrandts. 

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, … you will say, ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.’ 

“And the pain of that experience will never, ever, ever, go away. 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 go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.” 

 

 

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