Final Conversations: Survivors' Memorable Messages Concerning Religious Faith and Spirituality

Abstract

This article reports on the findings from a project exploring final conversations (FCs). The FC project examines communication with the terminally ill from the often-overlooked survivor's perspective (N = 30). The researcher focuses purposely on one major theme discovered in the FC interviews, that of messages shared regarding religious faith or spirituality. Messages pertaining to religious faith or spirituality were identified in 26 of the 30 FC interviews. The results revealed that validation-comfort and validation-community were the dominant themes in FC. Further, when framed as memorable messages, these FC excerpts revealed three "rules of conduct" relating to the following: (a) how to cope with life's challenges after a loved one is gone, (b) how to be involved in the death and dying process, and (c) how to enact or live your religion or spirituality. Implications for health communication theory and research, as well as comforting literature, are discussed.