In a culture obsessed with precious time, the aging baby-boom generation faces end- of-life issues with our senior parents. This autoethnographic inquiry explores the unique experience of accompanying my mother's dying and death as a journey through mourning toward wisdom. Education in gerontology and counselling encircle earlier experiences with family deaths to consciously inform my personal quest for coherence in ambiguous intrapersonal insights and uncomfortable interpersonal relationships throughout the stressful transitions. Honest description and analysis balance paradoxes of individual circumstances within societal context, meaningful passages in a lifetime, progressive transitional crises, and essential specific closures for a spiral of complex knowledge and simple wisdom for living. The inquiry puts a personal face on our universal search for meaning as an old-fashioned clock connects past generations, present considerations, and future perspectives. From this research into my multilayered experiences, counsellors and clients, readers and families who have mourned, currently grieve, or anticipate the loss of a loved one may find their own measure of wisdom.
Patricia Ann Mooney (Sat,) studied this question.