I am happy in Holland....

As a parent of a child with special needs, I know the toll it can take on any parent...especially a parent who works full time! To help support working parents at Aon who have children with special needs, we have been piloting a Share Point or internal collaboration website to allow these parents to share information, resources, and sometimes just to connect and know that someone else is going through the same thing.

In honor of all of those dedicated parents who spend hours researching the best doctors, finding the right schools, and in general just fighting to give their child the opportunity to thrive, I share the following. This story was shared with me by my son's wonderful and dedicated teacher. I hope it gives you the same sense of peace it gave me.

 

Welcome to Holland

 by Emily Perl Kingsley (1987)

 

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 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 a few 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 new group of people you would have never met.

It's just a different place, It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy that Italy. But after you've been there for a while and 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 if 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, very lovely things....about Holland.

 

LaShana Jackson

Global Director of Diversity & Inclusion

 

Comments

[Elizabeth Stephens]

Thanks for sharing that analogy. It shows that just because you didn't plan to go to Holland, doesn't mean you can't enjoy it while you're there. That lesson is applicable in many life situations.