This story of the author’s struggle with her mother’s death is a testimony of suffering, meaning, transcendence, and spirituality. The author’s mother was in the Hospice Home for seven days. She died on the author’s birthday. During this time, they struggled with callous doctors, incompetent nurses, tedious waiting, painful emotions, and wrenching farewells. The author struggled with revising the meaning of normalcy, with promises to take care of her mother amid the reality that she could not. This is a chaos narrative and a quest narrative. It tells the story of a journey through hell, ending up, if not in heaven, at least back on earth.
Bochner, A. P. (2002). Perspectives on inquiry III: The moral of stories. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (pp. 73-101). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
2.
Carr, D. (1986). Time, narrative, and history. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
3.
Crites, S. (1986). Storytime: Recollecting the past and projecting the future. In T. R. Sarbin (Ed.), Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct (pp. 152-173). New York: Praeger.
4.
Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
5.
Friedman, S. (1993). The new language of change: Constructive collaboration in psychotherapy. New York: Guilford.
6.
Garro, L. C., & Mattingly, C. (2000). Narrative as construct and construction. In C. Mattingly & L. C. Garro (Eds.), Narrative and the cultural construction of illness and healing (pp. 1-49). Berkeley: University of California Press.
7.
Greenspan, H. (1998). On listening to Holocaust survivors: Recounting and life history. Westport, CT: Praeger.
8.
Kirby, A. (1991). Narrative and the self. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
9.
Kleinman, A. (1988). The illness narratives: Suffering, healing, and the human condition. New York: Basic Books.
10.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.
11.
Shaw, C. L. M. (1997). Personal narrative: Revealing and reflecting other. Human Communication Research, 24(2), 302-319.
12.
Skjorshammer, M. (2002). Understanding conflicts between health professionals: Anarrative approach. Qualitative Health Research, 12(7), 915-931.
