Portraits of Life After Loss: Understanding Parental Loss Within A Social Context

Abstract

Parental loss at any age is a life transition that brings with it unprecedented changes. Encountering this loss in emerging adulthood can be especially challenging because of the many consequences characteristic of this stage of life. Existing research has excluded the experiences of young people grieving the death of a parent. Thus, the present study attempts to bridge this gap by focusing on the experiences of emerging adults dealing with parental loss with an emphasis on their journeys of coping with the loss, and how grief unfolded in a social context. In this exploratory research, four participants in the age range of 18–28 years were interviewed, and the data were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three superordinate themes emerged from the data, namely, early days following the loss, changing relational realities, and coping in the context of the other. Limitations and implications of the study have been discussed.