Leveta...Hugs & prayers for the family & friends she left behind. She is so beautiful in her picture, but I saw her beauty in your words of her before I saw the picture. God gives us special people in our lives to remind us how very precious this life is. My Aunt Mary had Downs and after my dad retired from AF lived with us until she passed in 2003 @ 45. She too always had a smile like your precious niece. She was a great judge of character too. We were all made better people by having known her.I miss her alot, but am so happy to know she is with the Lord & living it up !How special the message was your neice gave your family at the end.Gain strenghth in the knowlege she is surrounded by love & will be waiting for you....Hugs...Judy

Please - all you Mamma Bears (said with great respect - I'm a mom too) take a deep breath, stand back, and calm down. I have no doubt that that phone call was upsetting and frightening. Your daughter was smart to call you, and I think you were smart to investigate and also for Dad to call back and make himself abundantly clear. If the caller had bad intentions, he now knows that your daughter has a pissed-off no-nonsense male for protection. That can't hurt. But please do consider that the caller may not have had bad intentions. As you noted Bethpen, your daughter was kind to several young men with poor social skills, any one of whom might have made that call without understanding at all how it might have seemed to her... He may genuinely have considered her a friend, and have wanted to reestablish contact and see how her new job was going, and had no idea how creepy it would have seemed. But your daughter's creeped-out reaction may have alerted him to the fact that the phone call wasn't going well, so he declined to give his name for that reason - not thinking how that would make it all even worse... This type of action and lack of insight would be very typical of a young man with autism. This call was a single action, not a series, that was perceived as creepy because it did not conform to social norms. There was nothing threatening in what was said, but the social inappropriateness (that's the nature of the autism disability) created a perceived problem. A mountain out of what could truly be a molehill. At this point there has been one phone call with a message that was inappropriate and yes, creepy, but not actually threatening. Please try and keep that in perspective, and carefully consider the option that it may not have been meant to provoke fear. That said, I do agree with the suggestions to inform HR where your daughter works, and to ask for specific training about how to handle threatening calls. Given the nature of her work, that can only be of benefit. This post was edited by sweeby on Sun, Aug 10, 14 at 14:24

It's the GOVERNMENT, people-- the government BUREAUCRACY. You're not really supposed to be able to decipher it! Just think about when you filed your tax forms this year--how long did it take you to understand some of the new rules? (And I'm not talking to the people who took it to H&R Block). Really, some of you are acting ridiculous. What do you think "verify" means? Have you never had to verify your name and address when contacting a utility company or your credit card company? You've all been reading too many scare stories about identity theft. Nobody is going to steal your identity and open up 100 credit-card accounts on the basic info that the census people are supposed to ask you. And if you should happen to get that caller who is really a scam artist and asks you for your bank account number, then you hang up. But just do your civic duty--help the census work! Help tell the government where they need to put funding for your state! I don't get some of you: You filled out a form and perhaps talked to someone at the front door, but you won't take 10 minutes to complete the process? And, from Lowspark's example, these are the questions that make you think it's some con man, or that this is so intrusive and a waste of your valuable 10 or 20 minutes? Really, I think the Oprah show and even this chat board can wait a few minutes. This sort of questioning is suspicious? Did you fill out the form correctly? What is your name? Did you fill out the form? What is your address? My god! I can go to the reverse-directory at my library and get this info in 10 seconds! And anybody wanting to plan to burglarize your home and wondering if you live alone can just sit on your block for a couple of hours and figure that out. Are you also peeking out your curtains to make sure this isn't happening? There are some bad apples in every bunch, but pls, use your intellect. (And when you take a trip on a plane, when the check-in clerk asks you if you packed your bag yourself, does that make you feel as if they've intruded on your privacy?) The gov't has already spent a ton of money on this. It's not going to spend more to send some other kind of form to guide you through this last step. There is a lot of official census bureau info you could check, if you can spare that 10 minutes to do the research. You've crossed the line from cautious to paranoid. Not everybody is out to get you. This posting makes me livid.

Joan,that's too funny!!! My best friend and i have told our families that which ever of us dies first,the other gets to be the first one to go in the sewing room and take for free what ever they want,machines included.I have only 1 dd and she doesn't even sew on buttons.My oldest son knows how to sew but no time and my other 2 boys have no interest what so ever. I've told my family that my quilt books are to go to the quilt guild or the library. I do need to check with the library though.What i have is so much newer and better than what they have.Their books are bordering on antique. I jokingly told dh that he could save money,by having them line my casket with my cottons.Of course he didn't think that was funny. Actually you all should all be proud of me,i've cut way back on my buying of fabric.The only thing i've got in the last year is fabric to make baby stuff for the new great gd,and i already sewed it all up and sent it to my gd. If i see something i like,i ask myself if i need it or want it.If it's want,then i pass.I also stay away from the stores.Self control is what i'm practicing these days. Kathi