The Optimistic Pessimist

A question commonly asked during an author interview is: If you could have written any book in print, what book would it be? I've pondered this question quite a bit. I love to read and marvel at the creative work of many authors. When I am thinking about extremely creative ideas, I wish I had written the Twilight saga. If I'm thinking about pure literature, I wish I had written Pride and Prejudice or maybe The Poisonwood Bible. As for works that speak to my soul and have changed my life, the piece I wish I had written is not a book at all. Instead, it is an essay written by the mother of a disabled child. I hope I don't get in trouble for printing her essay on my blog, but I feel that I just have to. The following is one of the most influential essay's I have ever read. 

Welcome to Holland

by

Emily Perl Kingsley

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 even 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 before.

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 you 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.

I've been blessed in my life to, metaphorically, visit both Italy and Holland with my children. In the beginning, when Keelie was first diagnosed, I found myself crying one night. When Aaron asked me what was wrong, I told him I didn't want to go to Holland. I didn't want to be stuck in that place. I wanted to stay in Italy and pretend that Holland never existed. But a lot of healing has taken place since then and now I can see the beauty of both. 

Someday I hope to literally visit both places. And as I take in the view of the windmills and tulips it will mean that much more to me.