Holland. Tulips.

Early on, when I first got courage to reach out to other mothers in the Down syndrome world, I was referred to a poem. I searched online immediately and cried as I read it. The author is Emily Perl Kingsley who wrote the poem about her experience with her son who has Down syndrome. I don't have permissions to reprint it here, but with a quick internet search it's easy to find. The poem is called "Welcome to Holland."

Emily describes booking a flight to Italy, carefully preparing trip details with Italy in mind. But you land from your flight, and you're not in Italy. You're in Holland. And you can't go back and trade your ticket for a spot in Italy. You're in Holland to stay. It's a poem about finding the good in the unexpected.

So Holland has become a symbol in the Down syndrome community.

There is a shock in learning that you're not where you were expecting to be. An anger, and also a sadness for the trip you thought you were going to go on. It's all consuming at first the way you just can't stop thinking about what might have went on in Italy.

She talks about the realization that landing in Holland as opposed to Italy doesn't mean something awful has happened. It's just different. Not what was expected.

You have to learn new things, go through different areas, interact with different people who speak a different language, and generally just find your bearings in the new country.

But slowly, there's a realization that Holland has so many beautiful landscapes. The people are amazing. And you see the tulips. The tulips!! (I haven't been to Holland, but I can confirm that it is known for tulips because I recently met someone from this country. I asked if there are actually tulips, and she said with a big smile, "Oh ya, there are tulips."

I bought this shirt from a shop on Instagram called Littlest Warrior. It says, "Stop and Smell The Tulips."

We moved into our current house six years ago, and spent half of each year away for a sales job my husband had. We were always gone in the spring and summer, so we didn't ever have a chance to learn about plants or landscaping our house. He's changed jobs recently so we're not away as much, but we still don't have any landscaping to speak of. But every year about middle of March, a handful of firm green stems pop out of the ground in random bunches in the soiled areas in front of the house. There's not many of them, and they're haphazardly placed around the dirt, as if someone walked by and dropped them from their pocket, accidentally placing the plants where they lie. James has tried to pull them out many times, he's tilled the ground, and yet they still pop up every spring. What kind of flowers are these seemingly pesky little plants?

They're tulips, of course.

I've never really been into flowers, not because I don't like them. Just haven't had enough interest or exposure to really care about them. But now, you can bet I notice tulips. You can bet I look for them and smile whenever I find them. I think of my son that took me on a surprise flight to Holland. I think of everyone who has an extra chromosome and the way they change the lives of those around them.

Emily Perl Kingsley ends her poem by saying that you can choose to be sad about not being in Italy like you thought, or you can choose to find the beauty in the place you've landed. And that, to me, is what it's all about. It's one of those things that's easier said than done, and it takes times to be able to stand on two feet and truly mean it when you say, "I've accepted where my plane landed and it's actually pretty dang amazing here."

I'm somewhere in between the initial worry of being somewhere foreign and the acceptance of our reality. It honestly depends on the day right now. But the good thing is that I've got a lifetime to explore and get to know this unexpected place, and a boy with the sweetest spirit and the biggest smile to learn with. Just like the tulips who seem to have always been out front of our house, our Cooper seems to have always been meant to be a part of our family.

I love the way those unexpected, yet beautiful tulips show up every spring, even when we don't want them to. In just the same way our little boy showed up and gave us the most unexpected and beautiful surprise of our lives, even though at first it felt like something we didn't want.

I think we'll let the tulips stay.