An Ethnography of Continuing Bonds and Re-Membering the Deceased Blake Paxton University of South Florida, [email protected]
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School January 2015 Feeling at Home with Grief: An Ethnography of Continuing Bonds and Re-membering the Deceased Blake Paxton University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons Scholar Commons Citation Paxton, Blake, "Feeling at Home with Grief: An Ethnography of Continuing Bonds and Re-membering the Deceased" (2015). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5758 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Feeling at Home with Grief: An Ethnography of Continuing Bonds and Re-membering the Deceased by Blake A. Paxton A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Carolyn Ellis, Ph.D. Arthur P. Bochner, Ph.D. Lori Roscoe, Ph.D. Keith Berry, Ph.D. Margarethe Kusenbach, Ph.D. Date of Approval: April 16, 2015 Keywords: bereavement, interpersonal communication, sociology of emotions, autoethnography Copyright © 2015, Blake A. Paxton Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Introduction: Exploring Continuing Bonds in a Community of Grievers ...................................... 1 Seeking My Mother’s Voice ....................................................................................................... 1 Holding On, Letting Go: Our Dialectical Dance with Death ...................................................... 4 Chapter One: Saying Goodbye to Mom ........................................................................................ 12 A Quiet Winter Morning ........................................................................................................... 12 Winter 2002-2004: DuQuoin, Illinois ................................................................................... 12 Fatal Attraction ......................................................................................................................... 16 A Brief Description of Home .................................................................................................... 19 Hair Loft! Ann Speaking .......................................................................................................... 20 Bad News .................................................................................................................................. 23 An Intensifying Illness .............................................................................................................. 26 The Worst Day of My Life ....................................................................................................... 36 Death’s Aftermath ..................................................................................................................... 40 An Unfinished Coat of Arms .................................................................................................... 55 Fall 2005- Spring 2009: Saint Louis, Missouri ..................................................................... 55 First Kiss ................................................................................................................................... 57 Grasping for Hopeful Signs ...................................................................................................... 61 Interlude One ................................................................................................................................ 68 Chapter Two: Starting to Re-member Mom ................................................................................. 68 An Afternoon at IKEA .............................................................................................................. 68 Fall 2013: Tampa, Florida ..................................................................................................... 68 Time for Academic Tears: Trudging Through the Literature on Complicated Grief ............... 82 Re-membering Rex: Continuing Bonds in the Classroom ........................................................ 91 Introducing Psychic Medium Marguerite: My Exploration of the Supernatural ...................... 96 A Thanksgiving Stroll ............................................................................................................. 109 Interlude Two .............................................................................................................................. 112 Chapter Three: Re-membering Myself Back Home ................................................................... 116 Welcome Aboard Flight Denial, Rejection, and Despair ....................................................... 116 i Winter 2014: DuQuoin, Illinois .......................................................................................... 116 Facing the 10th Anniversary of Mom’s Death ........................................................................ 119 Memorializing Over Margaritas ............................................................................................. 132 Tender Moments of Grief and Brotherly Love ....................................................................... 142 A Visit From Ghosts of Christmas Past .................................................................................. 144 A Summertime Run ................................................................................................................ 148 An Afternoon with the Strong Sisters ..................................................................................... 151 Finding Compassion in the Surgeon’s Scalpel ....................................................................... 159 My Narrative Archaeological Dig into Death ......................................................................... 166 Re-membering with Sarah ...................................................................................................... 170 Restoring Bonds with My Father ............................................................................................ 176 Interlude Three ............................................................................................................................ 188 Chapter Four: Reassessing Continuing Bonds and Challenging the Causality Thesis ............... 189 Re-membering Stories of Post Death Contact ........................................................................ 190 Specific Re-membering Practices for Ann Paxton ................................................................. 197 The Challenges and Failures of Continuing Bonds ................................................................ 207 Emotions During Interviews and Observations of Challenges to Cultural Feeling Rules ...... 215 Chapter Five: Future Directions for Continuing Bonds Research .............................................. 220 The Role of Social Media in Continuing Bonds ..................................................................... 220 Rural Space, Re-membering, and Third Places ...................................................................... 230 Re-membering and Voluntary Kin .......................................................................................... 239 Concluding Thoughts .............................................................................................................. 241 Afterward: A Family Wedding Reception to Re-member .......................................................... 248 References ................................................................................................................................... 253 Appendix: Methodology and Analysis as Mourning .................................................................. 267 Spinning Stories Autoethnographically .................................................................................. 267 The Involved and Vulnerable Observer .................................................................................. 270 Finding the Narrative Truth of Experience and the Representation of Transcript Data ......... 280 ii Abstract Bereavement scholars Silverman, Nickman, and Klass (1996) have argued that rituals to continue a relationship with the deceased do not have to be considered pathological in nature. Since their work, scholars have offered specific strategies for the bereaved to actively construct a bond after death, including telling stories about those who have died, having imagined conversations with the deceased, celebrating their birthdays and anniversaries, and reviewing artifacts that represent or once belonged to them (among other strategies). Hedtke and Winslade (2004) call these “re-membering” processes by which the deceased can regain active membership in their loved ones lives. This dissertation is an answer to Root and Exline’s (2014) call for researchers to produce work that explores the bereaved individual’s everyday subjective experience of continuing a relationship with the deceased. Constructed from six weeks of ethnographic fieldwork and interactive