Transnational Caregiving and Grief: An Autobiographical Case Study of Loss and Love During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This article examines grief while providing transnational caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are an estimated 275 million migrants living in their destination homeland which is 3.5% of the global population. The transnational family strives to maintain solidarity, intergenerational ties, and cultural values while sustaining family structure across international borders. Transnational caregiving is the exchange of support and care across distance and international borders. The devastating assault of COVID-19 on older adults impacted caregiving significantly, especially transnational caregiving. A qualitative case study method was selected to examine a participant's understanding and experience of transnational caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the interviews and writing of the narrative summary, five themes emerged related to transnational caregiving and COVID-related losses -exposure to sudden and unexpected death, isolation, guilt, loss and change of traditions, and lack of closure.

Contemporary Burial Practices in Three Caribbean Islands Among Christians of African Descent.

Burial rituals are symbolic activities that encourage the expression of grief as a positive way to heal while helping to confirm the reality of death. In the Caribbean, consisting of multiple distinct islands and histories of colonization, how individuals are buried on each island depends on the historical intermingling of the colonizer's Christian religion and African (spiritual) rituals. Each island has distinct burial rituals that are a blending of Christian and African religious or spiritual cultures. This article highlights the distinct burial rituals on the Caribbean islands of Barbados, Haiti, and Trinidad and how its historical past has shaped present burial rituals and its significance to the African Caribbean grieving processes.