Metamorphosis: an autoethnographic journey through loss, grief, and perceived identity changes

Abstract

The aim of this article is to share a retrospective autoethnographic journey relating to the death of the author’s husband from bowel cancer. Three key stages of grief and meaning-making are presented and explored through a reflective account of the days leading up to his death, the moment of death, and one year later. Presented as a personal narrative, this article was written to express and share the author’s individual perspective on grief and loss, her coping mechanisms, and the identity changes she experienced, in order to add her insight into how individuals manage their loss and personal grief processes differently.

Keywords:

• autoethnography
• narrative
• grief
• loss
• identity

Additional information

Notes on contributors

CLAIRE B. PHIPPS

Claire B. Phipps is a lecturer at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Auckland, New Zealand. She leads and teaches on a large, first-year course that teaches students about the interrelationship between human health in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, and all areas of the environment through various lenses (e.g., gender, political, social, etc.). She is working toward the completion of her PhD (at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia), which focuses on exploring and illuminating the professional self-understandings and identities of university tutors and teaching assistants in the context of the contemporary, massified university.