Fragmentation is a basic symptom of loss, and poetry naturally reflects this disjointing and destructive effect. The fracturing within the poetic form reflects the internal and repeated fracturing effects of trauma on one's own life. In this poetry collection, A Strange Kind of Dying, the speaker is bound by the question, "How is it that I can piece myself back together?" The collection of poetry is meant to help the speaker to find healing from the fragmentation through language. The work is intended to be an act of transfer, passing on one human experience to another. The structure of the poems are eclectic in style to reflect the themes of fragmentation, disruption, and separation, making a strong connections between theme, content, and form. To achieve this aesthetic, I incorporate the formal and tonal qualities found within the poetic stylings of the lyric, elegiac, formalist, and confessional. By overlaying the above mentioned styles, tones, forms, and poetic concerns, I believe that my works contribute to poetry because it is a contemporary, poetic representation of the destroyed self. That is, it is an expression of how someone of today, in our modern, technological, and fast paced world, deals with the halting, and at time, paralyzing effects of loss, grief and trauma.

The problem of grief has been described as the pandemic within the pandemic. This project believes that the church can provide a holistic response to the bereaved through inclusive events, education, and a devotion to embracing a changing spiritual landscape. Through memorial ritual, proactive education and supportive relationships, grief can be transformational and nurture a positive spirituality grounded in welcoming Christianity. This ministry is applied at the First Congregational Church in the town of West Boylston, Massachusetts, a small mill town outside of Worcester with a long history of communal loss prior to the loss of the pandemic. / 2025-05-23T00:00:00Z

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Buried deep inside the debates on how we should die - with or without palliative care or euthanasia -and where we should die - in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices or in our own homes—lie two strange and persistent facts. Few people understand the dominant ways we die and the challenges most people face because of those types of dying. Many of the social science monographs and health policy debates focus on cancer dying or dying in total institutions. Yet cancer is only one disease that kills, and many people live out their dying with several fatal illnesses. Though many people become dead in total institutions, the longer part of living-while-dying is outside of custodial care. Between a popular media fed with mere clinical insights about dying and a social science tradition of investigations that have taken almost their every lead from health care institutions, major myths and biases do grow. And basic insights from history, cultural sociology and epidemiology continue to be overlooked. This chapter seeks to redress these oversights by describing the key social trends, and the personal challenges thrown up by them, for today’s dying populations. Any basic sociology of dying needs to grapple with these trends because they are the meeting places between recent history and identity for today’s dying person. I describe seven major social trends that are key determinants of the cur- rent social experience of dying. These are: (1) the complicated nature of dying trajectories; (2) the seduction of medical rescue as a broad cultural value; (3) the myth of institutionalization; (4) the social manufacture of horror for con- temporary images of dying; (5) the rise of single-person households; (6) the paradoxical trend towards promoting dying for resource-poor countries while promoting sudden death in resource-wealthy ones; (7) and the current inability to address the problem of destination for a fundamental life-course rite of passage such as death and dying.

no / Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the need and resources firefighters have to deal with death and dying (D&D) that they encounter whilst on duty and to present a curriculum to support D&D issues for firefighters. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative methodology involving focus groups was conducted in two fire stations in Spain. The sample was 38 male participants with a mean age of 46 y/o (range: 30-59 years) and an average tenure of employment of 18 years (range: 6-35 years). Data were subjected to a thematic analysis. Dual coding of the transcripts in addition to member checking enhanced analysis. Findings – Nine themes emerged: witnessing D&D during rescue operations;memories about D&D and trauma; impact on firefighter’s families; decision-making process under stress; teamwork: protective and self-support; inadequate D&D preparation and training; adequate technical and physical training preparation; relationship between equipment, legal-moral obligation, and victims’ outcomes; communication issues: toward the victim and/or their relatives. These themes were subsequently framed into three basic domains: personal impact of D&D, team impact of D&D, and victim impact. Each domain, in its turn, is covered by three curriculum topics. The curriculum’s pedagogy is primarily based on experimental-reflective activities during 16 study-hours. Research limitations/implications – The absence of female participants. All fire stations were in cities with no more than 150,000 inhabitants. Practical implications – Individuals who take this curriculum will: increase their ability for self-care and resilience; improve teamwork, leadership skills, and to decrease burnout; provide more effective care for victims; provide skills to cope with compassion fatigue; reduced the levels of post-traumatic stress disorders. Originality/value – Understanding firefighters’ needs with relation to D&D, and assessing the resources available to mitigate these issues will provide a comprehensive approach to their education and promote health both personally and professionally. A comparable curriculum or proposal has not been previously identified.

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Thesis advisor: Andrea Vicini / Thesis advisor: Daniel Daly / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

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