O lugar da mãe que morreu na narrativa familiar

Abstract

This study aimed to understand, through father’s perspective, how the mother’s figure remains present in families that the children experienced the mother’s death. It is a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory research. With design of collective case study, four widowed men participated, parents of children whose mothers died. The results show that after the death, the family builds places for the mother, in a way that matches with the singular family stories. The communication about the death to the child, the rituals and the practical actions related to the mother’s memory are the first manifestations of the new place occupied by the mother after her death. The perpetuation as an idealized figure, positively and prominently characterized, keeps guiding the being model. Already in the family relationships, between father and child, the mother has her place in the conversations, stories, photographs and in the maintaining of her teachings and examples. It is understood that the families find spaces that are beneficial to themselves, they relating to the maternal image at the same time that they elaborate their feelings of mourning.