Welcome to Holland

So many of you in the Down Syndrome community have probably read this already, but somehow it eluded me until this morning!  I saw these awesome shirts made by Ginny M and liked them right away, but didn't know the significance of Holland.  I asked my wife, Kerith, about them and she was so surprised to hear I have never read this short story.

It's beautiful and well written, and I agree with most of it.  So for those of you who haven't read it here it is:


     "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 Sistine Chapel, Gondolas. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting. 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. 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. 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, 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 experience will never, ever, ever, go away. The loss of that dream is a 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."

- Emily Perl Kingsley 1987

 I love this and appreciate everything she feels, yet I really can't find myself to say "the pain of that experience will never, ever, ever, go away" because, for now, I don't have the pain of wishing I was on any other path.  I am not blind to what lies ahead, and I will feel Alexi's pain when she gets upset, or frustrated, or hurt, but I don't see myself wanting to be on any path but our own.

I am probably in the minority (again) on this one, but when my friends travel somewhere on vacation, I am excited to hear the stories of their trip, but never envious enough to need to go there.  My wife and I love to explore new things, and see new places, so the thought of going where others have traveled is sometimes  less appealing than a new destination.  This doesn't mean we don't appreciate how beautiful the other places are, it just wouldn't bother us at all to go elsewhere.  Even if we had planned one journey, most of the fun we've had in life was "accidental" or "spur-of-the-moment" changes to "plans."  We have always tried to take lots of pictures on our trips and love to share our experiences.  So this metaphor continues, when I think about the fact that we have this blog.

So we really do say to all, "Welcome to Holland!"  Come on over, hang out with us a while, it's a GREAT place to be!  

Another awesome discovery for me this morning is, that GoodJobBuddy.org, was one of the first pages Kerith found about Down Syndrome.  It is also the first place she read "Welcome to Holland."  The great part about that is, Alexi is now a part of their site!  She is in 2 of their header images!!  That is so cool!

So thanks again to Ginny M and thank you goodjobbuddy.org!

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