Unveiling a fragile spirituality: Experiences of connectedness in pediatric palliative care

132 Chapter 7
ing after her daughter’s death. Yet, most of the parents did not adhere to any global
meaning system, or had got rid of it. Many who had been raised in a religious family
had set their original beliefs aside. The experiences of connectedness with the deceased
child did not reestablish a connection to their tradition or lead to another worldview.
This observation seems to be in line with the secularization of western society. Today,
many people live without a well-marked frame of meaning. They have the opportunity
therefore, to freely explore different expressions of religion, spirituality or specific worldviews,
but it also means there is no common ground to discuss such experiences with
co-believers.
CONSEQUENCES
Missing a community
Dennis Klass showed that having a worldview which gives meaning and living in a
community in which transcendent reality and worldview are validated, are important
features in the spiritual lives of bereaved parents (Klass, 1999). For that reason, participating
in a bereaved parent’s self-help group is considered helpful (Goss & Klass, 2005).
In the stories of the majority of the interviewed parents of our study, participation in any
kind of community was lacking. There was no natural environment to share and reflect
on their extraordinary experiences of connectedness to their child. Notably, parents
who did belong to a religious community, still did not feel free to speak frankly about
their experiences. A bereaved mother once told her pastor of a vision: she had seen her
deceased daughter singing in the Christmas choir in church. The pastor’s reaction made
her feel that such visions were not acceptable in Christian faith.
This may relate to the hesitant response of theology to contemporary miracle-stories
that include contact with the dead (Korte, 2011). Reluctance to appreciate experiences
of connectedness of the deceased, has consequences for theological practice. It seems
that In protestant churches in the Netherlands open talk about life after death is just as
rare as in the United Kingdom (Armstrong, 2011). While the official protestant doctrine
stresses the final physical resurrection of the dead in a new heaven and earth, ordinary
church members may envisage the afterlife as an immediate state of the soul. Continuing
contact with deceased loved ones is often part of this view.