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In His Time of Dying: Communication and Silence in Family Illness and Death

Arizona State University

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kendra.knight{at}asu.edu.

	Abstract

This is a personal narrative about the limits of communication in the context of illness and death. When I was twenty years old and a junior in college, my stepfather Jon was diagnosed with distally metastatic lung cancer and died four months later. This is a fragmented account of the emotional work I did and avoided doing during his illness and death, and the consequences of those reactions. In a sense, this is a story about scriptlessness in dealing with terminal illness. My hope is that my experiences, in their inadequacy, will resonate with families facing similar situations.

First published on September 16, 2009, doi:10.1177/1077800409346409

Qualitative Inquiry 2009;15:1612.

A more recent version of this article appeared on December 1, 2009


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