Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: bereavement

  • The proximity of death

    Paul C. RosenblattSt. Paul, Minnesota, United States In September 1951, I was a very sick twelve-year-old, covered with bruises and red dots where blood vessels were leaking. My nose had been bleeding for days and nothing we did stopped it. My blood was not clotting. The morning my mother took me to the University Hospital…

  • Emily, Usher, and American Gothic perspectives on mortality

    Olga ReykhartLiam ButchartStony Brook, New York, United States In an editorial for Medical Humanities, Gillie Bolton notes that death is a common theme in literature and also in medicine. She writes, “Death, dying, and bereavement are dark threads running through all literature. Not only are they life’s sole certainties, along with birth; they are also…

  • Campaigning for Craig: The healing power of a legacy T-shirt

    Nancy GershmanChicago, Illinois, United States Sometimes the elephant in the room is a painful irony, like the story of Craig, a 25-year-old flying instructor who died in his aircraft. As parents we think, “Oh, if only we’d talked him out of flying lessons!” But as bereavement professionals, we see both sides: a young adult doing…