This is not a homage to my home country. I’ve come across this article and I would like to share it with you. It is written by Emily Perl Kingsley, an American writer who wrote it after her son Jason was born with Down syndrome.

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 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.

We all know this article is not about Holland, Italy or going on a holiday. It’s about getting that diagnosis that you weren’t expecting. The future of your child that suddenly looks different, uncertain, difficult and scary.

Jackson is my Holland tourguide. The country I already know so well and love dearly. But I can’t wait for him to show me the hidden gems. Italy is overrated anyway 😉

The Holland tourguide t-shirt is a design by Littlest Warriors. Set up by Michelle Sullivan in 2015, after her son Eli was born with Down syndrome. With Littlest Warriors apparel she wants to spread joy, awareness, and inclusion one rad tee at a time. I fell in love with it instantly. Be sure to check it out: www.littlestwarriors.com. And yes that is her beautiful son Eli on the right picture.