ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the source of the differences by systematically analyzing the connections between contexts and conditions to see how the consequences differed. Parents began to grieve within seconds of realizing that their baby was dead. At that time and for months to come, they defined this event as the most devastating experience of their life. Parents with positive perceptions of themselves and others healed more constructively than those whose perceptions were negative. The story of the parents’ changing definition of the baby is poignant and powerful. Parents who needed to believe that their baby existed elsewhere usually decided that the baby had been transformed into a guardian angel. Through the process of searching for reason parents gradually found a way to explain their baby’s death. They needed an explanation that made earthly and divine sense. They also needed an explanation that reduced their anxieties about the randomness, unfairness, and unpredictability of tragic events.
