Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs (3 page)

“Do you have just a plain Happy Birthday?
I don’t want her ‘specialness’ to go to her head.”

Reprinted by permission of Martha Campbell. ©1992 Martha Campbell.

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See Me

I still have to remind myself all the time that it really is okay to just be myself. Sometimes all I see—all I think other people see—is the outside of me, not the inside. And I really want people to go in there and see what I’m all about.

Maybe that’s why I write poetry—so people can find out who I really am. My poems are all about my feelings: when I hope, when I hurt. I’m not sure where the ideas come from—I just look them up in my head. It’s like I have this gut feeling that comes out of me and onto the paper.

I can’t change that I have Down syndrome, but one thing I would change is how people think of me. I’d tell them: Judge me as a whole person, not just the person you see. Treat me with respect, and accept me for who I am. Most important, just be my friend.

After all, I would do the same for you.

Love is everything
Love is all around
Love is not hopeless
Love is passion
Love will not stop
Love is an ocean

Melissa Riggio as told to Rachel Buchholz

Melissa Riggio
is a nineteen-year-old woman who happens to have Down syndrome. She is the recipient of the Self-Advocate Award from the National Down Syndrome Society. She enjoys swimming, singing, and writing. She has cowritten two songs with British singer-songwriter Rachel Fuller. To learn more about Melissa, please visit her website at
www.riggio.net
. Rachel Buchholz is the senior editor for National Geographic Kids.

1
ADJUSTING

I
f apples were pears,
and peaches were plums,
and the rose had a different name.

   
If tigers were bears,
and fingers were thumbs,
I’d love you just the same.

Anonymous

Welcome to Holland

[EDITORS’ NOTE:
Despite, or perhaps because of, its familiarity, we decided the best choice to kick off this book and this chapter is with the well-known, well-loved, and oft-reprinted “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley.
]

Emily writes to Chicken Soup readers: I had no idea, in the beginning, how wide “Welcome to Holland’s” applicability would turn out to be. Although originally written in the framework of adjusting to the birth of a child with Down syndrome, “Welcome to Holland” has been reprinted in brochures and flyers for many different associations and conditions. It has been published all over the world in dozens of formats and languages. It’s been sewn into patchwork quilts and pillows. It’s been made into a stained-glass wall hanging. It’s been printed in beautiful calligraphy, illustrated with gorgeous tulips, and distributed as posters, note cards, and bookmarks. The response to “Welcome to Holland” has been incredibly gratifying. I’m always so touched when people write or tell me how much it helped or comforted them. Perhaps the most overwhelming tribute of all was to learn that two children have actually been named in recognition of the hope and support the parents received through “Welcome to Holland”: a little girl named Holland Abigail and a little boy named Daniel Holland. Holly’s sweet, smiling photo sits in a central place on my own refrigerator. It keeps me humble and grateful.

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 guidebooks 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 guidebooks. 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.

Emily Perl Kingsley

Emily Perl Kingsley
is a mother, lecturer, and professional writer who has received seventeen Emmy awards for writing scripts and songs for
Sesame Street.
A frequent speaker on the subject of disability rights, she serves on a committee to improve the way people with disabilities are portrayed in the media. She and her son, Jason, who has Down syndrome, have appeared on
Today, Good Morning America,
and
All My Children.
Jason and his friend, Mitchell Levitz, are coauthors of
Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome,
just published in an updated edition by Harcourt, Inc.

In the Game

T
he time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Robert Green Ingersoll

High-school sports. It’s about the biggest thing that happens in our town of Verden, population six hundred. And sports are important in our family. Both of our sons were high-school athletes. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when Lauren announced she was going out for the girls’ basketball team. But I was. At just five feet, one inch tall, our daughter’s lack of height wasn’t my worry.

She has Down syndrome.

My wife and I never told Lauren that she was different. We treated her like our other children. Same school. Same church camp. Same chores around the house. We didn’t want her to feel disabled or different because she had Down syndrome.

“I’m gonna play basketball, Daddy.” Lauren ran to meet me when I came in from work. She flew into my arms and lingered long in my embrace, her brown curls tickling my chin. Unlike some sixteen-year-olds, Lauren was outwardly affectionate.

“That’s nice, honey,” I replied automatically, and patted her shoulder. I figured she meant outside—on the driveway.

Walking into the kitchen, I kissed my wife Laura on the cheek. She looked up from slicing tomatoes and studied me hard. We’d been married more than twenty years, so I usually could tell what she was thinking, but her furrowed brow indicated I’d missed something. Laura spoke slowly, her tone steady. “What Lauren’s trying to tell you is that she’s joining the girls’ high-school basketball team.”

Just as my wife’s words sunk in, I heard Lauren behind me.

“I’m gonna be a Lady Tiger,” she whooped, skipping into the room and throwing her arms in the air. She raced out of the kitchen to one of her favorite activities, watching cartoons on television.

Everything that could happen flashed through my mind. Lauren’s reflexes were slow.
What if she got injured during practice or trying to keep up with the other players? What if the other girls on the team failed to accept her? What if an insensitive spectator made fun of her? Or what if Lauren’s feelings got hurt because she spent most of her time on the bench?

I was eager to discuss Lauren’s announcement with my wife that evening, but with four kids popping in and out, the time was never right.
What should we do?
Parenting seldom had clear-cut answers, and bringing up a child with a disability was an additional challenge.

Hours later, with the kids in bed, I shanghaied Laura at the bathroom sink. “Maybe she won’t make the team,” I offered.

“Everybody makes the team, Johnny,” she whispered, patting her face with a towel. ”It’s Verden. There are only eleven sophomore girls, and not all of them want to play.”

The next afternoon, I parked in front of the school gymnasium.
What would I say to the coach?
I jingled change in my pocket as I walked through the double doors.

Ponytails flopped as teenaged girls clad in T-shirts and shorts ran across the hardwood floor. Coach Forsythe stood on the other side of the gym.

“Hey, Johnny,” Coach called. Before I could speak, he
continued, “We’re glad Lauren came out for the team.”

Whew.
“Well, you know we don’t expect you to play her in a game, just include her when you can.”

I was thankful for the coach’s sportsmanlike attitude, but worry rebounded in my stomach. I moved up into the bleachers. Lauren stood alone at the other end of the court, shooting free throws. Short legs and a stout torso hampered her running and jumping ability. And where was her competitive drive? No other girl on the court grinned like Lauren did during a layup. After every shot, Lauren approvingly hollered, “Woo hoo!” She didn’t seem to care if she made the basket or not.

Mid-November, the season’s first basketball game arrived. I settled into a seat on the second row with the rest of my family.

“Nervous?” Laura whispered as she quieted my fingers from drumming beside her on the bench.

Just then, a low roar erupted. Cheerleaders sprinted on the court, rooting, jumping, and flipping. Their excitement wafted up into the stands. I stood along with the crowd and clapped. Moments later, a train of girls wearing white uniforms with burgundy and gold accents chugged out of the locker room. Last in line was Lauren. Following her teammates, she grabbed a practice ball. Serious game-faces seemed determined to conquer this new season as the Lady Tigers passed balls from player to player. But before Lauren took her warm-up shot, she searched the stands. Spotting us, she tucked the ball under her arm and waved broadly.