Continuity amid discontinuity: Bridging one's past and present in stories of conjugal bereavement

This article explores how people construct a sense of personal continuity before and after a major life change. An apt context for such a study is conjugal bereavement, since the death of a spouse introduces great discontinuities in one's life. We adopt a mediated-action approach (Wertsch, 1991, 1995) to address the construction of continuity within McAdams's (1985, 1993) life-story model of identity. In doing so, we propose that people can transform discontinuity into continuity by coming to understand how the personal meanings of activities before the loss can continue to be manifested in new activities after the loss. We review excerpts of narrative interviews that showcase variations of continuity and discontinuity in identity, with an emphasis on how life transitions can provide opportunities for identity development. In addition, we propose that this narrative model of continuity can help clarify central, complex issues in contemporary bereavement research.