Poems from the Deep

Abstract

Conducting research in a familiar site of crisis brings about feelings of resonance between a researcher and participants. After 11 months of shadowing a pediatric palliative care team and 20 interviews with parents and grandparents of seriously ill children, the author, also the parent of a medically complex child, searched for creative ways to explore her findings. In this exploration of life as the parent of a seriously ill hospitalized child, the researcher reflects on her participants’ and her own collective experiences and frustrations in the form of poetry.