Editorial Introduction: Rethinking Illness, Crisis and Loss

Abstract

This timely issue of Illness, Crisis and Loss brings us a wealth of inspirational approaches on understanding spirituality, culture and grief, end-of-life care, nursing education, and implications of coping models. The articles in this issue address key issues in understanding individual experiences of loss, grief, and coping models. As bereaved people, we need our experiential grief to be recognized, to be acknowledged. We require an understanding of the meaning of the relationship that has been lost—and this is often what is least understood by others. The impact of a loss is determined, not so much by the name given to the relationships, but by the meaning of that relationship in the bereaved individual’s life. Someone significant in our life is missing, and we realize that the cost of our love is the pain of our grief.