What is it like to experience the loss of an adult child in old age?

Being bereaved of a child is one of the worst life events that can happen to a person. When the death happens as that person approaches very old age, at a time of life when other losses are common, the risks of mental and physical health problems, and even dying, increase. Despite this, relatively little else is known about the experience of losing a child in old age, and how older people understand and cope with their experience.
As part of this narrative inquiry, three stories were produced which stand on their own to represent different experiences of bereaved older parents. The participants were UK-based and 79-82 years of age. All had lost their middle-aged son or daughter less than 2 years ago. Their stories are analysed in the light of the silencing effect of society’s preference for redemption and restoration narratives (Frank, 2010; McAdams, 2013) which act to deny the possibility of death. They are also examined in terms of the unique motivational perspective of an older parent heading into very old age.
According to Stroebe and Schut’s (1999) Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement (DPM), people divide their attention between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented stressors (as well as having time off from both) in a process called oscillation. In recent years, the DPM has been modified to recognise both the importance of interpersonal factors (Stroebe and Schut, 2015) and overload (Stroebe and Schut, 2016) in bereavement. Despite the popular notion of old age as a time of quiet contemplation, these stories could be read as cries for help in this regard.
Suggestions are made for further research.