Analysis Of Ava Dellaira's 'Love Letters To The Dead'

Many people define their lives by the relationships within their family. They are someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or someone’s mother or father. The loss of a family member, especially due to death, creates a radical readjustment to people’s day to day lives and how they see and feel about themselves. Sometimes the process of grief can last over several years and how it is mentally processed and dealt with is different for everyone. “Mud” by Geoffrey Forsyth, shows an insightful view of a grieving man who had already lost his father and grandmother and is now just coming to terms with the loss of his wife two years prior. The entire story is written in first person point of view which allows for the reader to fully engage themselves in the grief and strife of the narrator’s life. Geoffrey’s story “Mud” begins in the home of the narrator where he encounters these dead family members and has to decide if he is ready to move on from his grief and say goodbye or stay behind and be consumed by it.

The loss of an adult child is devastating, just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on the loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight into the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as the trajectory of illnesses. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss will also feature. There will be a summary of the findings, then a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology, and finally an as well as focusing on the bigger picture of loss with older parents who have lost their children.

The theme of parental mourning has been a universal one throughout the centuries. In the literature on bereavement, writers repeat certain themes, thoughts, and reflections; they talk of the powerful and often conflicting emotions involved in "the pain of grief and the

People deal with grief in different ways. As a small child, the way the narrator handles uncertainty and pain is distressing, yet also expected. She finds distractions in the furniture and decorations. The child notices a

When a loved one dies, children handle their grief differently than adults, but they still often grieve very deeply in their own way. Much of the grief children experience comes from the fact that children often lose friends to a sudden death such as a traffic accident. The loss of older loved ones may be more anticipated, such as

Cynthia Johnson is a 26-year-old single woman from Birmingham, Alabama. Being young herself, she takes care of her 5 children from non-marriages with different fathers. Not having a high school or college education, it is hard to obtain a proper job to take care of her children. At an early age, she became all too familiar with the idea of grief. Because of this reoccurring history of grief, Cynthia suffers with severe depression, has a history of substance abuse, and an overall unhealthy lifestyle.

The loss of a close one, especially a parental figure can create major changes in a child’s life, emotionally, physically and socially. Rachel is a case of a young adolescence whose life drastically altered after her father’s loss. Her situation allows for better understanding of how emotionally one can be impacted, resulting in changes within every portion of life. Her case is examined to help understand and support her emotional state and self better.

Death and dying is a natural and unavoidable process that all living creatures will experience at some point in life, whether it is one’s own person death or the death of a close friend or family member. Along with the experience of death comes the process of grieving which is the dealing and coping with the loss of the loved one. Any living thing can grieve and relate to a loss, even children (Shortle, Young, & Williams, 1993). “Childhood grief and mourning of family and friends may have immediate and long-lasting consequences including depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, behavioral disturbances, and school underachievement” (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2006, p. 61). American children today grow up in cultures that attempt to avoid grief and

On January 5, 2009 my father pasted away. He and I did not have the typical father-son relationship; we did not have a relationship at all. I presumed that it would have a little if any affect on me. However, as the semester continued, it seemed to get worse. Besides my father’s passing, several weeks later my grandmother was diagnosed with dementia. It was difficult for me to deal with, but it was more difficult for my mother to handle.

A child losing their parent is a terrible thing. It is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. To grow up without someone to teach you how to ride a bike or tie your shoes? To never be able to attend Bring-Your-Child-To-Work Day? Those missed experiences are haunting reminders of “what could have been.”

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

When I was a very young child, my mom died. It was an accident, or, at least, that’s what my dad always told me. I never quite believed it, but I knew better than to push it at that time. Because I had a sister to support – Samantha. She was four years younger than me, and she was my responsibility from the very beginning. Or so my father tried to convince me. I was always to be taking care of Sammy – Sammy came first. Everything was about her, but I could tell her nothing.

The loss of a loved one is a very crucial time where an individual can experience depression, somatic symptoms, grief, and sadness. What will be discussed throughout this paper is what the bereavement role is and its duration, as well as the definition of disenfranchised grief and who experiences this type of grief. I will also touch upon the four tasks of mourning and how each bereaved individual must accomplish all four tasks before mourning can be finalized. Lastly, with each of these topics, nursing implications will be outlined on how to care for bereaved individuals and their families.

The loss of an adult child is devastating just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight on the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as trajectory of illnesses which is more recent. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss is also featured. There will be a summary of the findings then finally a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology and an improvement in human beings

The sheer terror of losing a loved one as a child is devastating and often effects the way the child feels for years to come. During the evening of August 27th, 2002 I was making dinner with my grandmother. She was making my sister and me favorite pancakes. I loved spending time with my grandmother, because she always had unconditional love for our entire family. We set the table ate our enormous dinner and then we cleaned up the dishes and proceeded to the couch. While on the couch she supplied me with a snack of popcorn and read to me. After reading the book, my parents, sister and I left the house to go home. Little did I know, as I lay sleeping cozily in my bed, that a phone call would come into my mother, virtually changing the course