ABSTRACT
In many ways, the family grieving the interviewees described seemed to us to be like family grieving described in research that focuses largely or entirely on Euro-Americans (e.g., Detmer & Lamberti, 1991; Gilbert, 1996; Nadeau, 1998, 2001; Rosenblatt, 2000a; Rosenblatt & Elde, 1990; Rosenblatt & Karis, 1993; Shapiro, 1994). For example, many interviewees said that some family members knew quite a bit about other family member’s grieving. These family members witnessed the grieving of others in the family, a witnessing that could be understood as affirmation and support of the grieving. At another level, when others in the family are aware of a person’s grieving, they are on alert to help if the person seems to be going into deep depression or some other extremely painful or dangerous place. Evelyn, who had lost an adult son to cancer two years prior to the interview, talked about the struggles of a surviving son.
