Post-traumatic growth following the death of a parent: Does one auto-ethnographic account make a summer?
Komal Qasim, MSc
MSc, PhD Candidate, University of Bolton
Professor Jerome Carson
Professor of Psychology, University of Bolton
Parental death
in adulthood is for many a life-changing event (Pearce & Komaromy, 2021). In recent years, the work of Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004), has
focused on post-traumatic growth following trauma. Qasim
and Carson, (2020), challenged the inevitability of post-traumatic growth
following the trauma of bereavement. This paper considers the loss of her
father by the first author, from the perspective of the Tedeschi
and Calhoun Model. This looks for growth in five areas; relating to others, new
possibilities, personal strength, spiritual change and appreciation of life.
This auto-ethnographic account follows a rich tradition of other recent
autobiographical accounts in the bereavement field (Mayer & Mayer, 2020;
Coles, 2021; Moore, 2021).
1. Auto-ethnographic approaches to bereavement capture the intensity of the grief experience and can shed light on theory.
2. The paper examined one personÕs experience in the light of the theory of post-traumatic growth, but found evidence only of intellectual growth.
3. The case study highlights the importance of cultural factors in grief for practitioners.
parental death, post-traumatic growth, auto-ethnography, grief
The
emergence of the field called positive psychology was
announced by a special issue of the journal American Psychologist in
2000 (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
Seligman and his colleagues brought together several existing fields in
psychology, such as flow, mindfulness, forgiveness, gratitude, hope, happiness
and optimism. Rather than focusing on what was wrong with people, as he claimed
clinical psychology had done (Seligman, 2018), he suggested a new approach of
which the main goal was to increase flourishing (Seligman, 2011). The theory of
post-traumatic growth pre-dated the more recent development of positive
psychology, but the theory has been enthusiastically embraced by most positive
psychologists and is now a cornerstone of therapeutic approaches (Rashid &
Seligman, 2018; Carr, 2020). In brief, post-traumatic growth refers to
Ōpsychological change experienced as a result of the struggle with highly
challenging life circumstancesÕ, (Tedeschi &
Calhoun, 2004). While many clinicians have been concerned about the development
of post-traumatic stress disorder after natural disasters, terrorist attacks
and other types of trauma, some researchers have suggested that psychological
growth can take place after trauma (Joseph, 2012). The key elements of post-traumatic
growth according to Tedeschi and Calhoun are recognising personal strengths, improving relationships
with other people, having a greater appreciation of life, a deepening of
spirituality and increased openness to the new possibilities in life (Calhoun
& Tedeschi, 1999). Some 30% to 70% of survivors
of trauma report positive changes following the traumatic event (Linley &
Joseph, 2004). But does post-traumatic growth follow the death of a parent in
adulthood? In an earlier paper, the authors Qasim and
Carson (2020) presented data from an empirical study of 100 bereaved adults who
lost their parents in adulthood. There was little evidence for post-traumatic
growth in this group. In this paper, we present an auto-ethnographic account,
which also challenges the theory of post-traumatic growth after bereavement.
Auto-ethnography
is becoming a more recognised methodology in the
social sciences. According to Bochner (1997) there
are five central elements in auto-ethnography. The first of these is that
authors write in the first person, breaking the normal separation between
researcher and participant. Second, the focus of the account tends to be on a
single case. Third, the approach is more akin to storytelling than traditional
objective social science discourse. Fourth, the author will generally share
some personal details, normally taboo in conventional writing. Lastly, the
narrative takes place over time. The second author has used this methodology in
a number of recent papers. One compared his psychiatric career with the
psychiatric journey of a service user (Voyce &
Carson, 2020). A second contrasted the recovery of Andrew Voyce
with the life of the musician Syd Barrett, the
creative genius behind the band Pink Floyd (Hopkinson, Voyce
& Carson, 2021). A third looked at the reasons for studying psychology
(Hurst & Carson, 2021).
The authors
felt the auto-ethnographic method would be suitable for telling KomalÕs personal story of bereavement and then trying to
link her experiences to the post-traumatic growth model developed by Tedeschi and Calhoun. Hence the results section is in two
parts. First, Komal will tell her personal story of
her bereavement following the sudden loss of her father. Komal
wrote this over a period of weeks and Jerome edited it. Second, this paper will
then look at the items from the post-traumatic growth inventory, for the five
areas that Tedeschi and Calhoun (Calhoun and Tedeschi, 1999) say are central to the concept of
post-traumatic growth. Komal will describe her personal
situation in the light of the loss of her father and reflect on to what extent
she feels that post-traumatic growth occurred in each of these areas. The areas
are relating to others (7 items), new possibilities (5 items), personal
strength (4 items), spiritual change (2 items) and appreciation of life (3
items). We hope the reader will forgive the inevitable Ōbumpiness in styleÕ
between the personal narrative and the research literature.
My name is Komal. I
am the eldest of four siblings and my parentsÕ only daughter. I did my MSc and
then MPhil in human development and family studies at the University of the
Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. I got married in October 2013 and moved to the United
Kingdom with my husband. The passion for research persuaded me to continue with
my studies, hence I did an MSc in positive psychology
at the University of Bolton in 2017–2019. I lost my beloved father during
my studies in 2018. It has been more than three years now since I lost my
father, but the emptiness and the void are still there. No amount of work,
studies, research, people and friends can even begin to fill that gap. Being
the eldest and the only daughter, the bond I shared with my father cannot
adequately be described in words.
About three years following my fatherÕs death,
I cried my eyes out reading the auto-ethnographies of Kimmel (2020), LeBlanc
(2017) and Phipps, (2018) which made me think that the experience of losing the
most beloved person in your life can be the same and yet very unique for each
individual. The classic five stages of the Kubler
Ross (1970) grief theory are well known, but since no two people are the same,
the intensity, strength and order in which each stage might
be experienced by the griever are different. Knopke
(2018) commented that by narrating the personal story of our own bereavement,
we reflect on the social and cultural implications of living with the dead.
Therefore I wanted to reflect on my three-year journey following the loss of my
father, in the light of Tedeschi and CalhounÕs theory
of post-traumatic growth. But before that, I want to narrate and celebrate the
mystic, beyond the world, ethereal bond which I had
with my father. Just typing these words is literally making me tremble with the
sheer ruthlessness of the fact that he is gone. There is a theory that you know
you have healed when thinking about that trauma does not produce the same
physiological responses in your body that happened when the trauma actually
occurred. Yet I am shaking as if it just happened yesterday. The words I have
obsessively repeated the most after he was gone were, ŌItÕs impossibleÕ.
LeBlanc (2017), characterised mourning as an ongoing
process of highs and lows, and I share a similar perspective. Having said that,
it seems like, three years down the line, I am still stuck where it all began.
His death was not an ending, it was the beginning of a
million questions, to which I have no answer to date. The first questions
being, ŌWhy did he have to go so soon, just 56 years of age, is so unfair!Õ
ŌWhy is life so unfair at times?Õ These questions are rhetorical. Secklin (2001), commented that
traumas are multifaceted layers of personal, social, and cultural values and
the traumatic event itself is just the beginning of the story.
A week before my 30th birthday, I met my father
and he said, ŌI will surprise you on your 30th birthday. There is a big gift I
am going to give you this time.Õ It is noteworthy to mention here that I live
in the UK and my father lived in Pakistan and I was visiting him when this
conversation took place. I spent about three weeks in Pakistan and returned to
the UK only to find out six days later, that my father had passed away. I
remember the exact time (9.30 pm), the day (Saturday), and the date (24
February 2018) when my brother called my husband to give him this catastrophic
news. He was perfectly fine just six days before, so the news blew me away. He
was only 56 years old with no underlying health conditions, but I was told he
had a sudden cardiac arrest and in a matter of seconds he was gone. If I have
to define my feelings in one word, then the word has to be UNEARTHLY. I believe
that it is the normal reaction to any grief situation. Research proclaims that
the death of a loved one, especially sudden and unexpected deaths, provoke a
stronger emotional and physiological response in the grieving individual, as
there is naturally less time to process the news and adapt to it (Applebaum & Burns, 1991; Lundin,
1984). I donÕt remember crying much that night. Tears were sliding down my
face, but I basically felt emotionless and cold. The only thing that I felt at
that time was, ŌWhat is going to happen to my mother now?Õ My husband and I
packed our essentials and took the first available flight and went back to
Pakistan. I donÕt remember much of the 16 hours travel back home, as I took
relaxants and a few sleeping pills. Trauma has a way of etching every minute
detail on oneÕs brain (Borawski, 2007) but I guess I
was brain-dead at that time. I was eerily calm. Before leaving, there were a
few doctorÕs appointments to attend to and a few university meetings and
classes to be cancelled. I have no idea how I managed to remember and cancel
frivolous appointments like the hairdressers, as if nothing had happened.
We reached Pakistan at 2.30 in the morning of
26 February (my birthday). I was calm when I reached my fatherÕs home. My close
relatives were already there. My mother and my brothers looked at me and they
were expecting a big, massive reaction, as they knew the intensity of the
relationship I had with my father. I was emotionless. It was five in the
morning and his body was in cold storage as they were just waiting for me to
come and say goodbye – otherwise, in Islamic tradition the deceased is
buried the same day if possible. He was to be buried at 10am the same morning.
Around 8am, they brought his body all wrapped in white cloth (that is how
Muslim burials are meant to be). I remember screaming hysterically when I saw
his lifeless body and the first emotions I felt were anger and rage. Anger towards him. Did he have an epiphany that he was going
to leave me? What was the surprise that he mentioned a few days earlier that he
was going to give me on my birthday? It all seemed like a horrible prank,
surreal and nightmarish. That man had so much love, generosity, affection,
kindness and warmth to give to practically any and every person, whoever met
him even once, and seeing him lying calmly with an unblemished smile on his
faceÉ. I hit the zenith of pain and fell hard into the bottomless pit of
nothingness and screamed involuntarily. I wanted to burn down the whole world,
push away every person who came near me to console me. I wanted the universe to
explode and collapse, I wanted everyone to wail and scream, I resisted any
human touch, I felt obliterated. Was the surprise on
my 30th birthday his funeral? And if it was his funeral, then it had to be the
most ruthless gift of all. Or was it the fact that his Ōabsolute absenceÕ on my
birthday will mark a Ōforever and eternal presenceÕ on each birthday every
year? To date, I have no answer to this question. I saw him. I felt him. I
didnÕt touch him though. His lifeless body with an obvious smile on his face
was bizarre. Why was he smiling? All the grief theories I had read all my life
were just coming true now. Betrayal was the first thing I felt. I know it
wasnÕt his choice to abandon me, but I felt rage, indignation and betrayal. I
lost my trust in him and for the first time, I didnÕt feel loved. I felt as if
God had cheated me and it was just so unfair.
I remember myself staring at him, not really
crying. My mind shut down and my heart was as if physically seized and
squashed. In the 30 years of my life, he was the one man who had loved me the
most and accepted me exactly for what I was. The one man who had believed in me
the most. The only human being who would actually give away his own life just
to see me happy, and I could not imagine another person I could have loved more
in my life than my own father. I had given so much of myself to him that I felt
there was nothing much left for anyone else. All I had left to give to others
was perhaps the sense of duty and the roles I was bound to perform in everyday
life.
At 10am that morning they took the body away to
be buried. In Islamic tradition women are not allowed to go to see the burial.
They took him away and thatÕs when it hit me hard that this is all real. This
is it. He is not coming back and I am not going to see him again. This is it.
It was the end of time for me. I screamed without tears. That pain cannot be
described in words. Only the person who has experienced it can fathom what I am
trying to say. Numb, befuddled, disorientated, passive.
The dictionary doesnÕt have enough adjectives to describe the agony of this
loss. It leaves you simply speechless.
Relating to others
Items
1. I more clearly see that I can count
on people in times of trouble.
2. I have a greater sense of closeness
with others.
3. I am more willing to express my
emotions.
4. I have more compassion for others.
5. I put more effort into my
relationships.
6. I learned a great deal about how
wonderful people are.
7. I better accept needing others.
It dawned upon me that IÕm the eldest one of my
siblings and the only daughter and now it is up to me to emotionally support my
siblings and my mother. According to Parkes (1971)
all family members are affected by major transitions and may require new
adjustments and reorganisation of the structure of
the family unit. What will happen now and how will we spend the rest of our
lives without him? My husband was perhaps the only pillar for all of us to rely
on. But going forward, I donÕt think I learnt to rely much on anyone. It was my
pain and I had to deal with it myself. Feeling lonely and thinking that there
is a lack of social support are common, especially during the early years of
bereavement (Kimmel, 2020). His absence was so daunting that perhaps there was
no room for anyone else to fit in. For the next month, I stayed with my mother
and siblings, acting strong, consoling everyone, hardly shedding a tear, being
super active and super aware of the circumstances. The only emotion perhaps I
was left with was compassion for my mother. I swiftly paused the part of my
brain that wanted to cry, scream, grieve, mourn and accept the reality. I
thought IÕd have plenty of time to cry when I headed back to the UK. I used to
be sick every morning, stopped eating, but refused to cry because I felt that
if I started crying I would collapse. Also, I just didnÕt want people to feel
sorry for me. I stayed in Pakistan for about a month and a half. I remember the
day of my departure. It was like half of my body and all of my soul had been
buried six feet down the ground and only a few little pieces in the form of my
mother and siblings were the ones I was leaving behind.
I couldnÕt cry at all when I came back. My
husband tried to give as much support as he could, but I didnÕt really know
what I wanted. Every morning, the exact same time when I used to call my dad,
my body used to ache physically, like a drug addict having withdrawal symptoms.
I had a few of his belongings that smelled so much of him and I would hold them
for hours and stare at them lifelessly. Friends and family across the UK would
come to pay condolences and I just behaved like a robot, not knowing what to
say, not knowing what to do. I straightaway joined the university again to
finish my studies. For a very weird reason I felt that perhaps I had more
emotional support available in the university than at home, because I would sit
in front of my teachers, cry a river and thatÕs all. No expectations and no
strings attached. They all suggested that I give myself a break and apply for
Ōmitigating circumstancesÕ (an academic delay in submitting assignments) and
not to worry about finishing my projects. But I thought that forcing myself to
work might be a good escape from the harsh reality of bereavement
which I did not want to face. It did not help though. All I could think
about was my mother. I used to call her at least three times a day to check on
her. There was little I could offer her in a practical sense, with me being
thousands of miles away from her, but I was surviving being worlds apart from
my dad. The urge to speak about the trauma is very common among survivors. They
are said to become more sensitive and empathetic towards others (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). But I was so full of rage.
Even if I desperately wanted to reach out to others, I just could not. For
others I had lost a father, but only I knew what I had lost! I had literally
lost my reason. Reason for everything! When anything exciting and new happens
in my life, the first person I want to share the news is with him and every time
the realisation comes that I cannot share it with him
is as tormenting as ever.
New possibilities
Items
1. I developed new interests.
2. I established a new path for my
life.
3. I am able to do better things with
my life.
4. New opportunities are available
which wouldnÕt have been otherwise.
5. I am more likely to try to change things which need changing.
I donÕt know whether I learned anything new or
anything or anyone changed around me. As Abrams (2000) illustrated, death
doesnÕt really make anyone behave like an angel overnight, neither does it tidy
things up. It just makes people behave more like themselves
than usual. Hence nothing new emerged in my life out of the blue. Everything
remained the same, except the fact that I started feeling alienated from
everything and everyone. I felt disoriented, directionless and clueless. My
ultimate mentor had gone away, closing all doors for any new possibilities for
me. I know I am thinking too much inside the box, but I just donÕt have the
energy to redeem myself. Like I said, ŌThe show must go on!Õ ChowÕs (2010)
claim that for some individuals death of a loved one
implies loss of goals and future is certainly true for me.
Personal strength
Items
1. I have a greater feeling of
self-reliance.
2. I know better that I can handle
difficulties.
3. I am better able to accept the way
things work out.
4. I discovered that I am stronger than
I thought I was.
I went into therapy for a year. I read every
bit of bereavement literature I could possibly read. I did my MasterÕs thesis
on post-traumatic growth following parental death in adults. I went to the Imam.
I went to the priest. I went to spiritualists. I travelled for a year. I
self-pitied. I found that there is no formula to get over the pain, except to
develop a sense of peace to learn to live with the only thing I had left of
him, which was the immense mind-numbing pain. I just had to fall in love with
the pain of losing him. I had to accept that although he was not eternal the
pain of losing him would stay with me as long as I lived. He was larger than
life for me to deserve to be got over. And no, IÕm not a sadist. I am just
utterly loyal. Loyal to him, loyal to his memories, loyal to the love and the
pain he bestowed upon me.
I developed two personalities perhaps. One that
would go on in day-to-day life, socialising, working,
smiling, and just making sure that the show must go on and the other me, that
cocooned herself more and more and delved into making peace with the pain and
actually living with it, by befriending it. According to Taku
et al (2008) and Tedeschi and Calhoun, (1996),
personal strengths in post-traumatic growth are manifested in the individualÕs
ability to be more self-reliant, self-confident and assertive in handling
difficult situations.
ŌHis one call every morning, used to determine
how the rest of my day would be. Just by the way he would say ŌHelloÕ to me,
the tone of his voice, the energy, the vigour, would
just pour into me, like water into an empty vessel, and IÕd spend the rest of
my day based on the energy I had taken out of that one phone call each day. The
thought of spending the rest of my life without that ultimate source of energy
was and still is so tormenting, but at the same time it made me realise the amount of strength I had that I never knew
existed in me.
Spiritual change
Items
1. I have a better understanding of spiritual
matters.
2. I have a stronger religious faith.
Do I have a stronger religious faith now? Do I
have a better understanding of death, afterlife and spiritual matters? My first
introduction to Allah was through my father. Half of my life I prayed to God, not
because it would make God happy or myself peaceful. I only used to pray because
it would make my dad happy. One of my friends who happens to be a priest
described the whole thing very simply to me by saying that the only human being
you loved, perhaps more than you even loved God, has been taken away by God
himself, so there is nothing left between you and God. Now itÕs up to you,
which road you follow. The road to redeem and resurrect yourself is to find
your own God, not to keep sinking into the darkness of self-pity. People with
stronger spiritual beliefs have the tenacity to resolve their grief more
rapidly after the death of a close person than people with no spiritual beliefs
(Walsh et al, 2002). I believed I was a spiritually strong person, but after
this loss, I discovered I was not. I learnt that time doesnÕt heal, you just
adapt! I remember crying myself to sleep for days and months following his
death. Trying to make sense of what had happened and why. Every religion
believes that GodÕs wisdom lies behind everything He does. That may not be
comprehensible to us. I have thus far failed to comprehend His wisdom in taking
away the most precious person in my life.
Appreciation of life
Items
1. I changed my priorities about what
is important in life.
2. I have a greater appreciation for
the value of my own life.
3. I can better appreciate each day.
With him gone so suddenly it just made me realise how unpredictable, unreliable and short this life
is. His absence did not help me appreciate what was left of my life at all.
Rather it changed my entire being, my soul, my chemistry and my philosophy of
life. There was never any increased sense of appreciation towards life as Taku et al, (2008), Tedeschi and
Calhoun (1996), predicted to be the outcome of post-traumatic growth.
You give to others what you have. What I had
was what he gave to me. Like a moon has no light of its own and is given light
by the sun, so I had nothing of my own. With my sun gone, there was a permanent
eclipse in my life. This all may sound very pessimistic and dark to some and I
am open to the fact that I might not feel the same way 10 or 20 years down the
line, but every word is a true manifestation of a daughter who lost her idol.
And I know in my heart of hearts that this paper is for every son/daughter, who
loved their parent(s) to the extent of worshipping them and then lost them and
now feels daft and lost in the hideous brutal throng of life. I think ŌItÕs ok,
not to be ok!Õ DonÕt let anyone come and tell you that itÕs been days, months and
years now, so get over it. This pain sticks to you, like chewing gum stuck
beneath your shoe. Every step you take forward is an effort, as you are
constantly being pulled downwards. As one client said to the second author,
ŌGrief takes as long as it takes.Õ Also as Caine narrates in her book Widow,
Ōovercoming grief is not an overnight process. You stumble and waver back and
forth over and over again, but once acceptance comes, it brings a lot of peace.
She certainly thought of herself as a more confident and strong woman after the
death of her husband (Caine, 1974).
Reading KomalÕs auto-ethnographic account, there is a clear
divergence between what the theory of post-traumatic growth suggests should
happen after the trauma of bereavement, and what her personal experience has
been. The Tedeschi and Calhoun model suggests five
main areas of positive change. In terms of relating
to others, it was true that Komal paid more
attention to her mother and siblings. Yet she argued that she found it very
hard to reach out to others, as she was so full of rage over the death of her
father. New possibilities also
seemed limited. Indeed, she claimed that she felt alienated from everything and
everyone. She discovered that she had more personal
strengths than she realised but had none of the
other attributes the theory suggests, such as being able to handle difficulties
better. While she had always been a very spiritual and religious person, after
this loss she realised she was not. In terms of spiritual change, this may in fact have
changed for the worse. Finally, in terms of her appreciation of life she comments, ŌWith my sun gone there was a permanent eclipse in my life.Õ
One single
account does not challenge an entire theory, just as ŌOne swallow does not a summer make.Õ The authors presented data
recently that challenged post-traumatic growth following adult bereavement at
an empirical level (Qasim & Carson, 2020). These
findings caused them to reflect on their own experiences of parental
bereavement. The second author lost his mother 48 years ago, aged 16. This left
a gap in his life that has never been filled, nor ever can be. As he sometimes
comments to others about their mothers, ŌYou only get one mother in life.Õ The
existence of post-traumatic growth almost pressures individuals to believe that
growth is inevitable after trauma. This may arise more from societal pressures
to recover than from the theory itself. Vanessa MooreÕs moving account of the
loss of her husband Paul explores in great detail her difficulty adjusting to
her sudden loss, which led to her seeking long-term help from four different
therapists and being on the verge of suicide. It took years before she could comment, ŌIt occurs to me out of death itÕs possible to find
new growth,Õ (Moore, 2021, p215). The second author and a colleague have failed
to find similar evidence for post-traumatic growth (PTG) following psychosis in
interviews with sufferers, though other researchers have found evidence of PTG
where people with psychosis have better meaning-making and greater coping
self-efficacy (Mazor et al, 2016). Yet maybe for some
people and for some trauma, it may not be possible to experience post-traumatic
growth. Alternatively, growth may occur in some areas but not others. For
instance, faith may be shaken following the death of a child, but it may lead
to a greater appreciation of life. Additionally, there are clearly cultural
factors in KomalÕs story. Those of us who have worked
with individuals whose close relatives have died overseas know how hard the
process of bereavement is when they are separated from family and friends and
their unique cultural contexts, with their accompanying reassuring rituals
around bereavement.
Steffens
and Andrykowski (2015) reported that trauma can induce improved interpersonal, personal and spiritual
functioning in survivors. According to McAdams (1993) an individualÕs sense of
cognition and reflection may be improved after surviving a traumatic event that
may eventually help them to better comprehend their lives and themselves. They
may develop a new appreciation for life and find better and more refined ways
of tackling life situations. In this respect, a very interesting finding was
postulated by Agha and Anis-ul-Haque (2020), who
revealed that cognitive processes significantly mediate between bereavement and
the post-traumatic growth relationship. They suggested that bereavement or loss
does not lead to post-traumatic growth by default. Rather, in order to find
meaning in the loss or to grow one needs to cognitively comprehend and
accommodate the experience of loss and process it consciously. Avoiding the
pain, not thinking about it, blocking the trauma can only complicate the
grieving process. The findings somehow confirmed the findings of the current
study, showing that an inverse relationship was found between bereavement and
post-traumatic growth among 260 bereaved parents and spouses. The concept of continuing relations with the deceased was discussed
by McCarthy and Prokhovnik (2006). They postulated
that the relationship between the deceased and the griever does not necessarily
die and end with death. Continuing bonds may still exist, helping the griever
to comprehend the loss and change rather than just thinking of the death as an
end.
We do,
however, need psychometric tools such as the post-traumatic growth inventory to
be able to research growth in different groups and over time. But we also need
individual accounts of lived experience that challenge some of the assumptions
we make about people and their lives. Psychiatry has been enriched by the
publication of first-person accounts (Liebrich, 1999;
Davies et al, 2011; Carson, 2015), which allow us to enter the phenomenological
world of the sufferer. Through auto-ethnography academics can also introduce us
to the connection between their personal worlds and their academic lives (Bochner, 1997; Borawski, 2007; Comerchero, 2014; Seligman, 2018; Parker, 2020). The recent
collection of narratives of academics coping with the loss of their parents
(Pearce & Komaromy, 2021) presents the somewhat
unusual perspective of people who have researched death and dying, reflecting
on their personal experiences of bereavement. While each of these accounts is
unique, it seems strange to hear from, for many Ōthe father of bereavement
research in the UKÕ, Professor Colin Murray Parkes
narrating, ŌMy father lay on his side, on the floor by the
bedÉ My tears came as I knelt, then lay on the floor and held him. I felt my motherÕs arm on mine É the three of us together for the
last time everÕ,Õ (Parkes,
2021, p121). The GP soon arrived and he too was in tears. As
professionals we need theories, models and stories that we can apply to
ourselves, alongside those we use with our clients.
In this
respect, Worden (1991) developed four tasks of grieving which he suggested that
the griever must accomplish for the process of grieving to be completed. He
also suggested that there is no particular order in which one might fulfil these tasks. From accepting the reality of the loss,
to consciously working through the process of grief and then adjusting to the
new environment without the deceased, Worden added a fourth task in
bereavement, which involved redefining the emotional connection with the
deceased and finding new ways to remember that person. The dual process theory
(Stroebe & Schut,
2010), shows us how Komal moved between loss
orientation, grieving, to restoration orientation, in wanting to re-start her
studies as soon as possible, and oscillating between the two types of coping.
There is also some suggestion that women experience more grief than men (Hicks
Patrick & Henrie, 2016). Similarly, in Grief and
Grieving, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross talked about how
having studied death and terminal illness for her entire career it was ironic
that she should end up suffering herself for many years with a terminal illness
(Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2014). These accounts,
and KomalÕs, have a richness which helps us get close
to peopleÕs lived experience like that offered to us by CS Lewis in his Grief Observed (Lewis, 2015). These
accounts, and those of others (Mayer and Mayer Bird, 2020; Coles, 2021) bring
us closer to the people we sit alongside as they wrestle with the pain of
bereavement. In this tradition, we humbly suggest that Kathryn Mannix has written what is destined to be the next classic
in this field, With the End in Mind (Mannix, 2017).
To return
to Komal, her fatherÕs death was the single most
catastrophic event that changed her ŌchemistryÕ and the course of her life. She
wants to think and believe she is a stronger person now, but has she grown to
be a better person after this trauma? She answers definitively, ŌNo!Õ She is
certainly not bitter, but she has lost some direction and motivation in life. So many things that mattered to her before no longer matter.
Many things that did not matter before now make more sense. But the truth is, this sole event was the actual big bang in her life, where
time and space lost their meaning and she is still waiting for the aftershock
of that explosion to settle, so she can rebuild her broken universe again. Her
fatherÕs death has led her to conduct research into bereavement, and perhaps in
that sense this might be seen as some evidence of intellectual growth. Komal has recently become a parent and this may well change
her perspective again on her fatherÕs death. It will not fill the hole in her
heart that remains. Nothing will.
Acknowledgements
The authors
would like to thank three peer reviewers for their guidance and their empathy
for KomalÕs story. Komal
would like to dedicate this paper to her late father and to her husband who
supported her through her loss.
Postscript:
on 19 July 2021 Komal gave birth to a son. Muhammad Ibrahim Qasim. Life goes
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