How to Accept Life as it is and Find the Beauty in Everything

by Jessica on Saturday, April 2nd, 2011

Earlier I was watching a PBS show and they had a voice over read “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley. It’s a very moving passage about accepting children with disabilities, while recognizing that it’s different than what most expect. I think this is a very important piece, but I also think you can apply these words in a more general way.

I don’t want to take away from the words for what they were meant, but I think it only speaks to what a great writer Kingsley is that I can see meaning in the words beyond her first intention. Please read this if you get a moment. I think everyone can relate with the idea of planning something in life (or for your life) and having it go differently. But there is a way you can find that proverbial silver lining.

Some of you might dislike my title, thinking that there’s no reason to “accept” life as it is. And there are many cases where you’re right – when you can make changes for the better, do so. But there are some things not in your control. Being different is hard. But those who are different can still shine.

Welcome To Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley

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.