GRIEF THERAPY SESSION #5

Today was Jacob's fifth and final grief therapy session, for a while.  We can always request a visit anytime, since the grief counsellor has been assigned to Jacob until he's 18 years old.  We just wanted Jacob to have 1 more session before school started, just in case he wanted to release a bit more emotion.  And hopefully by doing so, he wouldn't vent as much in school next week.  I

Unfortunately, I had to work today, so I was unable to give Jacob support during his emotional release.  Even though Shannie and I both go upstairs when the counsellor comes over, we still like to be close by.  And we think it makes Jacob more comfortable still having us in the house.  He's seen the counsellor 5 times, but her presence means sadness, so I know Jacob still has reservations when she visits.

Today however, Jacob made the least amount of progress.  It seems as if Jacob cannot get past the anger stage and is unable to forgive Roxy the pit bull.  The counsellor also felt as if Jacob was associating her with Roxy and directing some anger towards her.  The counsellor  said that it was normal for kids to do this, but she did feel that Jacob's Asperger's was adding to the situation.

All in all, she felt that Jacob had made great strides when you consider that he has an ASD, and we do too.  It's great that Jacob has been willing to come as far as he has.  And we are very proud at how much he's grown during the sessions, and over the summer.  Now we hope it translates into improved behaviour at school, but we know that anything can happen.

The counsellor also spoke with Shannie about creating a story about Jacob.  The story would be about what happened on Christmas 2010, but this story would end with Jacob forgiving Roxy the pit bull and essentially, living happily ever after.  It sounds good to me, so the counsellor it going to email us the template for the story and then we'll write it together.  Then when it's completed, we'll let Jacob read it and hopefully he'll forgive through visually seeing it happen.  It sounds different, but we're willing to give it a try.

We also received a nice letter from the grief counsellor about Jacob's ongoing issues since Christmas 2010.  I'm also going to be submitting the letter as evidence in our upcoming trial, which has been set for November 20.  Hopefully that day, we'll all get some closure and we can all start to recover.  Max's death has been front and centre for almost 2 years and it will be nice for it to come to an end.  Once that day comes, we'll all be able to breathe a sigh of relief.