Knowing When to Ask for Help

Shortly after the death of one of my husband's cousins earlier this year in Cleveland, Dominic started telling me, "have to get Grandma out of the Burcham Hills." Burcham Hills is the care facility in East Lansing where my mother-in-law lived for several years before her passing in 2011. We visited my mother-in-law a lot and she came to our house for dinner at least once a week, so he got to know her pretty well. About a month ago, Dominic said, "Grandma Martha is wearing a black coat in the cemetery." As most people know, I am rarely at a loss for words. I truly had no clue what to say to that. My mom (Grandma Martha) has been gone about 16 months. About two weeks ago, I had lunch recently with two of my very good friends. During the course of the conversation, I told them about how Dominic was still coming to terms with my moms passing and the best I have been able to come up with was, "she was broken, couldn't be fixed and went up to Heaven." Immediately, one of my friends said something along the lines of, "if Dominic breaks something, he will think he is going to Heaven." I knew in that moment, I needed help on how to explain this better. Both of my friends mentioned Ele's Place, an organization in Michigan that assists children and teens in grieving a loved one. I got a contact name and number and immediately reached out. In less than 30 minutes, I had a response back. She put me in touch with the Program Director who I chatted with last Friday. The Program Director told me that they have worked with children and teens with Autism and that she had several resources she could send me. In less than six hours, I had those resources. She also gave me the words to use now with Dominic (she was very, very, very old; very, very, very sick or very, very, very injured; her heart stopped beating or her body stopped working). Dominic with his limited language needs words that are very concrete. A word not to use is "lose." The Program Director also told me that when there is a recent loss, it triggers past losses. Given the recent loss of my husband's cousin earlier this year, that totally makes sense as to why Dominic was talking about Burcham Hills and my mom in the cemetery. A literal "lightbulb" went off! I like to pride myself on being able to handle anything that comes my way with Dominic. In this particular situation, I'm really glad that I asked for help. I just wish I hadn't waited so long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Dominic with my mother-in-law

**Dominic with my mom.

Comments

Those "Steps" to Independence Can Be Hard

We are heading towards 600 orders for Dominic's business. Since our long-term goal for Baked Goods By Dominic is having a "brick-and-mortar" and hire those with disabilities, it is essential and imperative that I continue to teach him all parts of the business. Since I prompted Dominic for so many years for speech, he has become "prompt dependent." What that essentially means is that he will look at me for a prompt, like, "what do you do next?" I do that one a lot. Dominic has been going to a private speech therapist for over ten years and she reminds me often that Dominic usually will know the answer, if I am patient and wait for him. That has been a very hard habit to break! Dominic has an incredible memory, so I put it to the test this morning. I didn't write out the steps, I wanted to see how much he could do completely on his own. We have a customer picking up his order today, but the only thing that had been done is putting the cookies into t...

Why We Pursued Guardianship of our Son with Autism

Last Thursday morning, my husband, Dominic and I went to our county's Probate Court and had Dominic's Guardianship Hearing. My husband and I are Co-Guardians, and we were granted "Partial Guardianship," which means Dominic can make some of his own decisions (future educational and vocational placement options, what to wear and how he wants to spend his free time), but my husband and I will make his medical, health care, legal, contractual and major financial decisions. The subject of Guardianship in the disability "world" has been and continues to be a controversial and divisive topic. I was a panelist for an Autism Conference this past summer and presented on what it's like to have a child with Autism. Towards the end of my presentation, I mentioned that Dominic had just turned 18 and that we were going through the Guardianship process. When the attendees could ask questions, the first person that went up to the microphone started telling me that I was...

Presume Competence

Since we have traveled outside of the United States since Dominic was very small, we have had to get him a Children's Passport every five years. Since his current one expires in February of 2024 and he is now 19, we had to apply for an Adult Passport. I don't know why my husband and I picked Dominic's first day of school and Michigan State University moving in their students, but the appointment was yesterady at 3 p.m. We had gathered all of the documents needed and then went into a special room in the East Lansing Post Office just for Passports. The three of us sat down and the clerk asked Dominic his age. He said, "19." Since we were also getting his picture taken for the Passport, he went into a separate room, where she took a picture of him and then let him look at it to make sure he liked it (it will be his picture for the next 10 years)! He said he did, so he sat back down with us. The clerk filled out a bit more of the paperwork and then she let Dominic s...

bountifulplate

Search This Blog