Windmills, Tulips, Rembrandts
I remember the very first time I heard the phrase “welcome to Holland”. I had joined a Down syndrome support group on Facebook and made my first post about grappling to accept all of the emotions that came with the diagnosis. It was my first-time hearing all of the strange but lovely little phrases that are used among those in the Ds community. My post was filled with comments welcoming me to “the lucky few”, the “club I never knew I wanted to be a part of”, congratulating me on “winning the lottery”, and telling me to get ready for “the journey of a lifetime”.
I stared at all of the comments. How could these people be saying all of this to me? Didn’t they read what I wrote? Couldn’t they tell my heart was heavy with sadness, fear, anxiety, disappointment, grief? The final comment that I read didn’t make sense, and it wasn’t the first time that I had seen it – “welcome to Holland”. What did this mean? I finally Googled it and found it was a phrase from a poem, written by a woman named Emily Perl Kingsley who also had a son with Down syndrome.
I read the poem once. Then again. Tears started falling as I finally fully grasped everything that saying meant. I cried as I realized that the moms who wrote all of those comments really got it. For the first time since Luke was born I felt heard, understood, accepted. I realized I was no longer alone and the emotions I was feeling had, in fact, been felt by other parents before me whose child was diagnosed with Down syndrome.
If you’re in the same place as I was not that long ago, let me be the first to say – I understand how you feel. All of the thoughts and emotions you’re grappling with are normal. You aren’t the first person to feel or think the way you do, and you aren’t the first person to feel bad for feeling and thinking the way you do, nor will you be the last.
Realize that you are not alone. Realize that it is going to be okay. Realize that your life and your child’s life are still going to be beautiful. Down syndrome may result from an extra chromosome, but it’s also something that makes life a little more extraordinary.
So, let me welcome you - welcome to the lucky few, welcome to the club – welcome to Holland.
Welcome To Holland
by Emily Perl Kingsley
Copyright©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
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 flight attendant 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.