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Childhood Loss Research Paper

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When I was a child I was fortunate to experience very little loss. The first loss that I did experience was at the age of 9, when my father was transfered within his company and our family moved several hours away to a new town. According to Dr. Wright, this is one of four types of loss that are experienced in childhood, with the other three being death of grandparents, death of pets, and divorce of parents (Wright, 2006). Within a little more than a year of that move I experienced another loss, the death of my great-grandmother (on my eleventh birthday of all days! We weren't considerably close, but she was one of my favorite relatives. She always had hugs and a smile for me). Shortly after the loss of my great-grandmother, my first pet (a hamster) died. …show more content…

For the move, my parents explained that we wouldn't be terribly far, that we would still come back to our home town and visit, and that we (my siblings and I) would have the chance to make new friends at our new school. When my great-grandmother passed, it was not suddenly - she had been diagnosed with lung cancer prior to her death, which gave my mother time to explain to us what was going on, and that she would die. When she did pass, my parents gave us room to cry, held us close, and attempted to comfort us as best they could with words about how it would be less upsetting with time. When my hamster died I believe I felt the most grief, though looking back I would assume that all of the loss I had experienced prior, as well as the loss of my pet, led me to such extreme feelings of hurt over this loss. I remember my father telling me that my heart of gold was kind and tender, and that was why I felt things so deeply. I've carried that statement with me my entire

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