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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.

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