Life Will Never be the Same: Experiences of Grief and Loss among Older Adults

Grief is an almost universal human experience. It is also one of the most intense and painful human experiences. By exploring the experiences of older adults who experience grief, this transcendental phenomenological study was guided by the following two-part research question: “How do participants experience their grief and how do they describe their coping mechanisms?” The study included a sample of 10 older adults whose family members had died. The analysis used in this study included bracketing, horizontalization, clustering into themes, textural descriptions, structural descriptions, and textural-structural synthesis. Through this process, a number of themes were found that relate to the experience of grief (i.e., it is just so hard, life will never be the same and it is just part of life) and coping with grief (i.e., women are more open, men less expressive, time is a good healer and makes life worth living). Implications for therapeutic practice and areas for further research are discussed.