欢迎来到荷兰

“Welcome to Holland”

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  this…

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s  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 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…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  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 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.

By Emily Perl Kingsley.

“《欢迎来到荷兰》

常常有人请我解释养一个有残疾的孩子是怎么样一个经验。我的解释可能可以帮助那些没有这种经验的人了解，体会是什么样的感受。是这样┄┄

你怀孕了，快要生孩子时就像正在制定着一个非常美好的去意大利的旅行计划一样。你买了很多旅行指南，作了很多极好的计划：去意大利的圆形大剧场，看米开朗期基罗的“大卫”，去划威尼斯的小船等等。你也可能开始学一点意大利文，一切都令人兴奋！

经过几个月热切地盼望，那天终于到了。你收拾好行李，就出发了！几个小时后，飞机降落，空中小姐对你说：“欢迎你到荷兰来。”“荷兰，什么意思？荷 兰？我报名的是意大利！我一辈子最大的梦想就是去意大利!”但是飞机计划有所变化：飞机在荷兰降落了，所以你只能留在那儿。

但是，最重要的是他们没带你去一个又脏又讨厌，非常可怕地充满了疾病、饥荒和有害东西的地方。只是意大利不一样而已。所以怎么办呢？你必须去买新的旅游指南， 你也必须学另一种语言。你还会认识很多本来你没有认识的人。

只是换了一个地方而已。这个地方的节奏比意大利慢一些，也没有意大利那么华丽，但是你在那里一段时 间后，心情平缓了，有了一点时间四处看看，你会发现荷兰有风车，有郁金花，甚至还有伦勃朗的画。

但是你周围的人还在忙着来往意大利，吹嘘他们有趣的旅行，你可能一辈子都会想，“我以前也是应该去那儿的，我原来打算那样。”

失去这个梦想的痛苦永远不会消失，因为你确实失去了它。不过，如果你总是只为没去过意大利感到遗憾，你就不会享受到荷兰的可爱特别美好之处。