“Online school” has gone better this week. My twins still have their growing edges. My BI has offered to come 1 or 2x a week, in house, to help them do the school work that they refuse or fight me on. So yesterday was the first day for that. While one is on a video call with their EA, the other was downstairs doing missed work with our BI. Then the switch.
Both twins have a hard time with the concept of time, so doing the math problems related to that was on the list for help. It was explained to me that the boy is a linear thinker… needs the steps, while the girl is, like me, visual, and needs the picture. So the boy can write the story then draw the pic, while the girl is the other way; draws the picture, then tells you the story.
Still, there is a lot of yelling. Like just now, to get them to go out the door.
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On a different note, I saw today that one of the members of my church died earlier this week. Death in time of COVID-19 and quarantine…
Death is hard at any time. Expected or not. Death is hard.
Death is hard because it is the final goodbye. You will never see this person again. Your mind goes through all the memories that you have of that person. You also think back to the last time that you saw/spoke with that person. It is possible that you have guilt for the things that were said the last time that you spoke; it is possible that you have guilt for what you didn’t say.
I have always wondered at the obituaries that say “no funeral by request”. I suppose it is because they didn’t like funerals for how they made them feel, or as someone once said, if they couldn’t be bothered to tell me to my face when I was alive, why come to my funeral and say nice things then? In this case, there is no option. We are not able to have gatherings and hence, no funerals. In my previous profession, I was a chaplain. I have had to explain over and over that funerals aren’t for the deceased. S/he will not be able to hear what you say, think or feel about them. Funerals are for the living. So that we, who knew and loved this person, can come together in our grief. That we will share in the gathering, the words and experience of grieving together, even though we may be in very different places emotionally at the time.
Perhaps it may be good that we wait until later to have a memorial service for the deceased, but at this time of raw grief, it is hard to process. How do you say goodbye if you aren’t able to “see them go”? By that I mean, how do we say goodbye without laying them to rest (either by burial or by ritual)? 
I feel for all those who have lost and aren’t able to say goodbye. For those who aren’t able to travel to say goodbye before or after death. My father died on the other side of the country 15 years ago. I never saw him on his deathbed, me, the chaplain, never got to experience that as a family member, but had the privilege to be able to plan a funeral, to greet the many who knew my father, to be there when he was buried in the cemetery. I grieve with those who have lost loved ones in this time of quarantine. I grieve with those unable to participate in ritual farewell. I grieve for those who don’t/won’t understand.
That ASD Mom 