ABSTRACT
This chapter defines what the book is about, the narratives of bereaved parents. That bereaved parents have narratives, organized stories about their child's dying and death and the aftermath of the death, is an important finding in itself. When parents talk about a child's death and their grief, much of what they say falls within a limited number of domains of narrative including the domains of the dying process, the moment of death, funeral rituals, religion, relationships with friends, grieving, and couple difficulties over differences in grieving. Each domain provides a coherent vocabulary and focuses on certain frames of reference, certain aspects of social relationships, certain areas of meaning and understanding, and certain ways of labeling and talking about feelings and thoughts. What parents gain from functioning largely within what seems to be a relatively small number of narrative domains includes a manageable organization to reality about the death and their grief.
