What is the experience and meaning for women in midlife of the recent death of their mothers?

• Main Author: Kranz, Karen Catharine
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/9328

The purpose of this research was to explore how women in midlife experience and make meaning of the recent death of their mothers. A qualitative phenomenological paradigm was chosen as a means of exploring and discovering, in depth and in detail, midlife daughters' experiences as they viewed them from within their own phenomenological worlds (Henwood, 1993). Nine Caucasian women between the ages of 42 and 65 years participated in individual, in-depth, audio taped, personal interviews. Each of these women had experienced the death of her mother between 1 1/2 and 5 years prior to the interview. The main question the women were asked to consider and describe was: What was it like for you to experience your mother's death and what meaning does her death have for you today? Co-researchers were invited to discuss their experiences like a story with a beginning - a middle - and an end. Colaizzi's (1978) seven-step model of phenomenological data analysis served as a general guideline to identify the common themes shared by these women who had recently experienced their mothers' death. Seven themes emerged through the analysis. These themes pertained to these daughters' (1) profound sense of loss, (2) need to make sense of their mothers' death, (3) need to reassess their relationships with their mothers, (4) sense of regret concerning lost opportunities, (5) sense of shifting roles and responsibilities, (6) need to reassess meaning in their lives, and (7) sense of enduring connection to their mothers. These themes are elaborated on in terms of their implications for future research and counselling.