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Narratives of Parental Death, Dying and Bereavement A KIND OF HAUNTING Edited by CAROLINE PEARCE CAROL KOMAROMY Narratives of Parental Death, Dying and Bereavement “This pioneering volume brings together eight personal reflections on parental death. It speaks powerfully of the complexities and shifting alignments of parental and familial bonds, care and responsibility, identity, guilt, self-reflection and celebration of a life, all of which combine to create the singular sense of loss and grief brought about by the death of a parent. These remarkable accounts, as unique as the lives and deaths of the individuals they reference, are all the more compelling because they are written by leading authorities in the field of death studies. By focusing on a subject which to an extent has been eclipsed, this mov- ing, instructive and richly textured book makes a significant contribution to the study of death, dying and bereavement.” —Professor Hilary J Grainger OBE, President of The Association for the Study of Death and Society and Chair of The Cremation Society of Great Britain Caroline Pearce • Carol Komaromy Editors Narratives of Parental Death, Dying and Bereavement A Kind of Haunting Editors Caroline Pearce Carol Komaromy University of Cambridge The Open University Cambridge, UK Milton Keynes, UK ISBN 978-3-030-70893-1 ISBN 978-3-030-70894-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70894-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Randomerophotos, iStock. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Foreword The editors and contributors to Narratives of Parental Death, Dying and Bereavement: A Kind of Haunting are academics and professionals in the UK who have provided significant leadership in the field of death, dying and bereavement both nationally and internationally. It’s an honour to welcome this anthology that adds to our knowledge of the meaning and experiences of parental death. Each of the book’s chapters focuses on parental death, a universal experience that has for too long received little theoretical, psychosocial and research attention. This volume offers an important contribution to the field of death studies that has more often tended to explore the death of a child or death of a spouse. In these sensitively wrought chapters, the contributors describe their parent’s life and death, as well as share their own personal meaning of this loss. One chapter was written decades ago shortly after a parent’s death. Most were composed in 2019–2020 long after the parent’s death, in part through the lens of memory and in part through the perspective of the author’s academic and professional knowledge of death studies, theory and research. Although the authors each have recognised expertise in research and academic death studies, they are a heterogeneous group, differing in gender, age at parental death, current age, cultural and class upbringing, v vi Foreword family composition, and life-time patterns of emotional and physical closeness to their parents. They each contribute a unique and thoughtful perspective in describing their experience of parental death. This anthology raises important issues and questions about the interface between the knowledge of academic professional scholars, and their personal private experiences of the death of their own parents. The boundary-transcending nature of this book will make it useful for academics who have undertaken research to study others often without con- sidering their own personal experiences. Gratitude is due to the contributors who have opened a revealing window into the interface of the personal and professional aspects of their lives. I am particularly pleased that the topic of parental death is the main focus of this collection. Although parent-child relationships have been studied for the first decades of their lives together, child-parent relationships in middle and later life have been under-investigated and often limited to issues of role reversal and caregiving. After decades of profes- sionally researching issues related to middle-aged children and the death of an elderly parent, I believe that understanding the impact of parental death can significantly add to our conceptualisation of the complexity of relationships between middle aged adults and their parents. Once a parent has died, a haunting tie remains, a theme that continually reappears throughout the book. My hope is that many family researchers will read these chapters and find new avenues to explore. Most authors describe their parent’s health, functional capacity, cogni- tive abilities, and resources available, as well as the choices of care that were available and desired by the parent. Readers will note that the contributors differ in what they share of their personal feelings. Some of the inner thoughts of each author are shared directly (e.g. a daughter’s ambiv- alence toward a new pattern of recovery after her father’s very long and deep decline). Many write of their sense of regret after parental death, such as wishing there had been less medical intervention, their lack of intimacy with their parent, regret that they had not spent more time with the parent, and of the impact of not being with the parent at the moment of death. A noteworthy underlying theme recurring in several chapters is that of family privacy and “sacred-secrecy” (the silences, what is and is not Foreword vii spoken or shared within the family and out of the family). This contrasts with the more openly described ways in which the authors responded to the structures and policies of the outside supporting professionals with whom they interact, whether medical (to diagnose, treat and cure), funeral (designating procedures to be followed), or clergy (setting expec- tations for family in ritual). These professionals could find that reading this anthology will help them gain insight into better filling their chang- ing roles as they seek to sensitively interact with family members of parents and others regarding the end of life. Most of the parental deaths discussed in this volume occurred toward the end of the twentieth century or early in the twenty-first century. However several children described the death of both of their parents over a span of decades. This broader temporal perspective allows contributors to highlight societal changes over time in gender roles, the place of death, timing of funerals, and flexibility in rituals of burial. What was fitting when the first parent died sometimes changes when the second parent dies. In any case, the death of the first parent typically increases the bereaved child’s sense of responsibility and interaction with the widow/er, while the death of the last parent often generates a sense of ‘orphanhood’, as well as the loss of a final buffer against death. Scholars interested in family interactions and relationships will gain insight from these authors’ discussion of the degree to which an individ- ual bereaved child shares, or does not share, their experience and mean- ings of parental death with their siblings and other kin. This is consistent with our group’s research which has found that each child’s experience can be very different from what a sibling experiences (Moss and Moss 2012–13). I think that therapists who provide bereavement care will be enriched by this anthology. This volume might also be a useful tool for university students in their introduction to death studies, since it offers rich fuel for thought and discussion. Finally, I believe that persons who have experienced parental death will find that this anthology speaks to them about their own identity, how they related to their own parent in the past, how their parent had an impact on their own lives, and how their tie with their parent will be maintained or modified in the future. Several authors discuss their viii Foreword thoughts of eventual plans for their own death after reconsidering the end of life and death of their parent. The experiences shared by each of the authors will inevitably sensitise readers to the multi-dimensionality of this topic. The book makes an important contribution toward expanding our understanding of parental death. Glenside, PA, USA Miriam Moss Reference Moss, M.S. & Moss, S.Z. (2012–2013). Meaning of the death of an elderly father: Two sisters’ perspectives. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 66, 195–213. Acknowledgements This anthology reflects the collaborative reciprocity that exists in the death studies community. It arose from informal and sometimes intimate conversations about personal loss. Like many anthologies, it is intended as a shared offering of personal experiences for people interested in the detail of what it is like to be involved in the dying and death of a parent. More than this, it highlights the difference and diversity in such experiences. As editors we are grateful to those authors who have shared their experiences and reflected on what it means to them; taking the reader behind the scenes of family life. We also thank the reviewers of an early draft of the manuscript and acknowledge how important peer support is to academia. ix Contents 1 Introduction: Narrating Death 1 Caroline Pearce and Carol Komaromy 2 A Kind of Haunting 33 Carol Komaromy 3 A Death Recalled 51 Jenny Hockey 4 C ontinuing and Emerging Bonds: Working Through Grief as a Daughter and an Academic 79 Kathryn Almack 5 A Bittersweet Legacy 101 Gordon Riches xi