As with the death of an infant, parental grief over the death of an adult child is often overlooked. Attention is focused on the child’s spouse and family. People seem to forget that the adult, despite his age, was still a child to his parents. I vividly recall sitting in the church at a funeral mass for a dear friend, a physician who died suddenly at the age of fifty-nine. The priest talked about the contributions this man had made to the community, and how he would be missed by his wife, his
children, and his colleagues. There was never a mention of his mother, who sat in the front row and went totally unrecognized!