ROAD
MAP TO HOLLAND
How I Found My Way Through My Son’s First Two Years With Down Syndrome
by Jennifer Graf Groneberg
Publisher: NAL (New American Library)
It’s five days after the birth of her twin boys, Avery and Bennett. Author Jennifer Graf Groneberg and her mother-in-law have just finished holding the babies, who are staying in the Neotnatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). She suspects something is wrong, by the way their pediatrician takes a seat beside her and reaches out to gently touch her forearm. Dr. Rosquist unfolds a piece of paper, and hands it to Jennifer.
The paper shows a chromosomal map—a “map of genetic destiny,”
writes Jennifer. “My eyes scan the paper—dots and squiggles, two
by two, until there, I see something different. An extra dot...”
Avery has Down Syndrome. His brother Bennett does not.
Road Map to Holland has been described as a helpful resource, “a companion for parents, and above all, a story of the love between a mother and her son—the child she didn’t know she wanted, the child she always needed.” The writing flows, picking up speed with honesty and raw emotion, then slowing in all the right places, to let readers catch their breath.
I love that the author writes with such transparency. She doesn’t sugarcoat her immediate feelings upon hearing the news. Her first chapter is titled, “At First it Hurts to Breathe,” because that’s how she felt—as if the very breath of life was being sucked out of her. It's an unforgettable story about joyful anticipation...confusion...and the loss of a dream; yet, I came away encouraged by the spirit of this mother, who admits to coming to terms with parental fear and uncertainty, yet sometimes finds herself returning to it. Hers is honest prose that keeps readers turning the pages.
Her story causes us to ask ourselves how we would feel, what we would say,
how we would find strength to do what had to be done. How we would react to
others who might not understand.
If I were to pick a crowning moment in this book, a passage that summarizes
the tone and message most intimately, it would be this:
“I’m struck by the moment. That life goes on. That Avery has Down
syndrome, that everything moves forward with such beauty and tenderness and
sincerity...”
Jennifer’s road map to “Holland”—to the new life she
has come to understand like the contours of a new landscape—is an invaluable
story for us all, and I feel richer for having read it.