Reviving Some Loving Memories of Parents

Thank you for David Larsen’s superb “The Sorrow of a Grown-Up Goodby.” I hope the article and Andrew Scharlach’s forthcoming book will be widely read--particularly by those professionals to whom we most often show our emotions.

I am one of those recently orphaned adults. A few months after my dad died I had a routine appointment with my gynecologist. As we talked I had one of those unexpected surges of tearing, so apologized and explained that my father had just been killed in an automobile accident at age 85. In his best hale-fellow-well-met voice my good doctor boomed, “What a great way for him to go!”--thereby trivializing my grief and earning a spot on Scharlach’s list of what wasn’t helpful to me in my grieving process.

LOLA SPALDING

Irvine