Facing Death: Familial Responses to Illness and Death

Death is one of the rare certainties of life. While rituals surrounding death may vary by geography, culture, and time, suffering the loss of a loved one is a universal experience. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has increased global awareness of and proximity to serious illness and death. Since the outbreak of the virus in 2019, hundreds of millions of individuals have been infected and the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been directly implicated in millions of deaths worldwide. Societal changes, related to social distancing requirements and city-wide lockdowns attempting to slow the spread of disease, have made it more difficult for individuals to find support in their grieving process. As a result, those coping with the death of a loved one have often found themselves caring for family members and managing the bereavement process in isolation. Facing daily death tolls and constant efforts to avoid infection has kept death in the forefront of our collective awareness. As a multidisciplinary endeavor, the current volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research includes contributions from a variety of methodologies and contexts to provide a timely exploration of familial responses to illness and death. A rapid increase of global connectedness in recent times has allowed individuals worldwide to connect and share information on an unprecedented scale. As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on, death continues to be a daily concern that transcends geographic and cultural boundaries. Facing Death: Familial Responses to Illness and Death provides an avenue to analyze, understand, and process death from a variety of perspectives, and we are deeply appreciative of each author who has contributed their time and expertise to this volume. We also want to extend sincere thanks to the members of the editorial board, the external reviewers, and the Emerald Publishing staff for their contributions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)