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

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.

Although the phenomenon of grief is a normal, healthy response to the death of someone loved, for children it is a traumatic ripping away of everything they have known. As a result, everyday life becomes utter chaos while familiarity and comfort vanish, emotionally propelling the griever into uncharted territory with innumerable questions and fears. When those uncertainties are not dealt with appropriately, grieving children tend to imagine circumstances that may be far worse than reality” (Pond, 2013, p. 113).

Normally when people respond to grief it is pain, crying, screaming, silence, and falling into the pits of darkness. In the poem “Make Believe,” by Jacob Shores-Argüello, grief is portrayed in a new way. The poem begins by discussing grief in a painful cold way; the ways the author viewed this experience as an adult. However, about halfway into the poem, the author describes how he coped with this grief as a child, a way of coping displayed through a journey of imagination. This poem displays the difference between the author’s grief as an adult and as a child.

Natalia Coutu Ms. Cox English 11 Accelerated 10 June 2024 Masculinity, Inner Child, Disillusionment: The Navigation of Grief and Maturity in A Death In The Family by James Agee Through the Voice of Rufus Follett Death, an inevitable part of the life cycle, has an impact on the mindset of a person, especially that of a child. For a child who experiences grief, there is a crucial aspect of self-discovery that comes with it, where the child learns how the world works and how they fit into it. It is a state of confusion where the child does not understand the permanence of a topic like death, as well as a change in the dynamics of the people around them, uprooting everything they know about their life, and this change is especially drastic when

Beth, the mother from the movie Ordinary People, represents many of the complexities of parental bereavement. In the movie, Beth presents as distant from her surviving family members and appears to manage her grief ineffectively. However, Beth’s experience of losing a child is one of the most profound losses an individual may experience. The literature describes parental bereavement as “more intense, prolonged, and complex than other patterns [of bereavement]” (Whiting, n.d., slide 7). Thus, contextualizing Beth’s loss (i.e., the unexpected death of a child) is an important part of understanding Beth’s expression of grief. This discussion will explore unique to bereavement within the parent/child relationship. Specifically, this discussion

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.

Francine Cournos is a medical student that turned to psychiatry after realizing that she identified with people’s stories. In Courno’s biography, “City of One”, she reflects on her past. At an early age, Cournos lost both of her parents, her father at three years old and her mother when she was eleven years old. The loss of two attachment figures at such an early age had a profound affect on Cournos for the rest of her life. Cournos analyzes her experiences as a child, young adult, and womanhood and uses her findings to contribute to explanations of her thoughts and feelings. Cournos aims to provide readers with insight into the various ways children are affected throughout life by the death of

In America’s current culture death is a taboo subject that many individuals feel awkward talking about. Most individuals feel uncomfortable simply after hearing the word. After facing a death, the large majority of people decide to isolate themselves dealing with their grief alone. Bereavement is a complex feeling of emotions that many people do not know how to face on their own. Each individual goes through the bereavement process differently. Society usually focuses on adult grief, but lack to give attention towards children in these situations. Most people think that children are too young and naïve to feel and understand these emotions about grief. However, this is not the case children actually have complex emotions just like adults. Also children are very curious about death and need attention from adult to gain a full

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.”

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.

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

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

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.

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

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