Commemorating kindly? Issues for mothers and children in anticipatory grief

Enhancing communication between mothers and children during the experience of cancer treatment offers opportunity for professional intervention in areas of anticipatory grief and loss. This paper attempts to extend on well-established models of grieving practice. Sandra Sutherland Fox emphasised a four task process of understanding, grieving, commemorating and going on.

The paper documents the use of drawings, paintings and collages by children and mothers over a 12 month period. It offers clarity to issues particular to the child-mother relationship and bond in facing such illness together, to encountering the loss of life-time and physical and emotional proximity to each other. This work aims to give greater specificity to the task of commemoration in its particular application in oncology practice. It adds information and accuracy to professional practice in a sometimes avoided, unmanageable and unmentionable patient area.