Maintaining continuing bonds through body memory in cases of early parental bereavement

This paper investigates how young children who have lost a parent create and maintain continuing bonds within the setting of a peer-support grief camp. Drawing on a phenomenological approach, we highlight lived experience as an intersubjective phenomenon and explore the role of the body and its material presence in sustaining connections after loss. Through observational data, we explore the practices that animate these bonds, emphasizing the body as a primary site of memory. In the camp context, creating and sustaining these bonds involved diverse 're-membering' practices, such as narratives centered on photographs and keepsakes, alongside shared activities like play, art, and music. These practices allowed children to recall meaningful connections and foster relational awareness around their losses. Our findings underscore the centrality of the body as a site of knowing and recollecting in early childhood bereavement, and the importance of exploring the concreteness of the loss through material items, special moments and places shared with the deceased parent. Ultimately, this study offers grief professionals deeper insights into supporting the development of continuing bonds in young children.