120 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
variable positively and significantly associated with death anxiety (Ens &
Bond, 2005). Ens and Bond posited that death anxiety is mainly a function
of the relationship characteristics and subsequent grief. Yet, this intense
grief is often disenfranchised as grandparental death is to be expected.
Adolescents benefit when their grief is validated and they are provided
a safe space to remember their grandparent and talk about him or her.
Adolescents may be conscious of their parents’ grief and inhibit themselves
from expressing their grief at home. Again, schools have a special opportu-
nity to provide the place for adolescents to process such grief without fears
of making their parent’s grief worse.Death of a Friend
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) names “unintentional injury” as the
number one cause of death in adolescence, with suicide and homicide close
behind (CDC, 2010). Even so, with advances in medicine, more individuals
affected by childhood illnesses such as leukemia, cystic fibrosis, and other con-
ditions fatal in childhood in the past, now live into adolescence and beyond,
making malignant neoplasms the second cause of death for the 10- to 14-year-
old group (2010). Worldwide from 2000 to 2012, HIV-related deaths among
adolescents tripled (World Health Organization, 2012), yet as the reading by
Calvert in Chapter 4 indicates, children are now less likely to become infected
perinatally, and children and adolescents in nations with access to highly
active anti-retroviral therapy and supportive health care are living with HIV
as a chronic illness rather than a life-threatening one.
Whether from neoplasm or HIV, the struggles of adolescents during
illness are prolonged and poignant; friends may gather round to help sup-
port their friend during illness. Many times, affected teens spend much of
their recovery time trying to “act normal” and maintain the friendships
that are so important at this age. The novel and movie “The Fault in Our
Stars” vividly shows these themes (See trailer at http://www.google.com/search?
sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=the+fault+in+our+stars&ie=UTF-8&rlz=
1T4AURU_enUS501US502&q=the+fault+in+our+stars+movie&gs_l=
hp..2.0l5j41.0.0.4.39525...........0.qooRAtsN5dk#kpevlbx=1). The strong efforts
to maintain normalcy may mean that friends are blindsided when a friend
actually dies. Grief Speaks has developed a resource area for teens who
experience the death of a friend (www.griefspeaks.com/id89.html). Even
more startling for teens is the death of a friend by homicide as reflected
in Celeste Johnson’s reading at the end of this chapter. The injustice and
sheer surprise that comes with a friend’s sudden death in adolescence is
not only hard for teens to adjust to, but often is the first time they experi-
ence the death of a peer. In one of the few studies of adolescents’ experience
with death, Ewalt & Perkins (1979) found that many more teens (juniors
and seniors in two Kansas high schools) had an experience with death than
had been predicted; indeed nearly 90% had experienced the death of a close
friend or relative and 40% had experienced the death of a friend. In short,
although adolescents often are exposed to deaths, they also often have few
opportunities to process that grief because of their own reluctance to expose
their feelings and thoughts, and also because they work hard to maintain a
facade of normalcy.