One of my Favorite Stories

The prose below is by Emily Perl, mother of a child with a developmental disability. There was a movie made about her family's experience in raising their son, Jason. It's called Kids Like These. Her speech was distributed in 1999 as an insert to the Williamson County Recreation Center's newsletter sent to their "special needs"--that is, handicapped--population. It is perhaps the best expression of what it's like to be a parent of a retarded or disabled child that I have ever seen. I found it many years ago after watching the movie. It touched me so much and I have kept a copy of her speech all these years. I thought it was worth sharing.

A Trip to Holland
by Emily Perl

When you're going to have a baby, it's like you're planning a vacation to Italy. You're all excited. You get a whole bunch of guidebooks, you learn a few phrases in Italian so you can get around, and then it comes time to pack your bags and head for the airport--for Italy.
Only when you land, the airline attendant says, "Welcome to Holland."

You look at one another in disbelief and shock, saying, "Holland? What are you talking about? I signed up for Italy!"

But they explain there's been a change of plans, and you've landed in Holland, and there you must stay. "But I don't know anything about Holland! I don't want to stay," you say.
But you do stay. You go out and buy some new guidebooks, you learn some new phrases and you meet people you never knew existed. The important thing is that you are not in Italy, but neither are you in some filthy, plague-infested slum full of pestilence and famine. You are simply in a different place than you had planned.

It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy, but after you've been there a little while and have had a chance to catch your breath, you begin to discover that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland has Rembrandts.

But everyone else you know is busy coming and going from Italy. They're all bragging about what a great time they had there and for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's what I had planned."

The pain of that will never, ever go away.

You have to accept the pain, because the loss of that dream, the loss of the plan, is a very, very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you will never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.