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.