ABSTRACT
This chapter lays out areas of religion that were common in parent narratives. It is not only because religion and a religious community are important in the lives of many of the parents, but also because religion is a major area of discourse in the culture for dealing with death, life-meaning, morality, and fairness. Religion is also drawn into the lives of bereaved parents through death rituals. Religion offers a conceptual and behavioral path for remaining in contact with the child, for thinking of the child was still alive, and for possible reunion with the child. A parent's feeling of having responsibility, through prayer, for the child's death may have colored the parent's perception of God, but it did not seem to eliminate the challenge to religious belief. Some parents dealt with the challenge to religious belief by saying that the death was not a result of God's action, but that God claimed the child's soul after the child died.
