Narratives on Pain and Comfort: Readings from Endings and Beginnings

Extract

At age twenty-nine, while a graduate student in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, Mark Albertson was diagnosed with lymphosarcoma. He died four months later, leaving a wife and two young daughters—Robin, three years old, and Kim, three months. Sandra Albertson, a Quaker, writes about their family’s experience with death and renewal.

The following is reprinted from Sandra Albertson, Endings and Beginnings (New York: Random House, 1980; Ballantine, 1983): chs. 9, 10.