Charlie’s Bitter Sweet Symphony: A Guide Toward Healthy Healing for Young Adults Grieving

Charlie’s Bitter Sweet Symphony: A Guide Toward Healthy Healing For Young Adults Grieving is a written resource for bereaved young adults. Cassandra, having faced the challenging loss of her father, Charlie, just before starting college, noticed a distinct lack of resources tailored for grieving young adults. She felt discouraged by the scarcity of materials specifically catering to the needs of this demographic. In response to this gap, Cassandra decided to write a narrative to fill the void and offer guidance to others navigating similar challenges in their grief journey. This narrative represents Cassandra’s exploration of resilience in the face of bereavement during her own young adulthood. Initially, Cassandra set out to create a "guide to grieving" for young adults, but discovered there's no universal roadmap for an easy journey through loss. To gain insights, she interviewed five individuals who suffered the loss of their parent between the ages of 15 and 22. Despite diverse experiences between the interviewees and Cassandra, common themes emerged. She delved deeper into these themes through research, hoping to create a comprehensive resource that young adults could look to. Still however, through the process, she realized grief is highly personal, shaped by individual circumstances and reactions. While various paths for coping exist, the focus of this thesis is to inspire and offer guidance to those navigating the challenges of grieving. Charlie’s Bitter Sweet Symphony, originally the famous 37-hour playlist created by her dad, was also the soundtrack of his life. Now, it is a guide for young adults grieving the loss of a loved one. Each chapter in the narrative, named after a song on her dad’s playlist, provides insight from an interviewee, an anecdote from Cassandra’s experience, and research from other online sources to support themes presented in the text. Cassandra hopes that her words can serve as a guiding light, leading an individual with grace and strength through the dark passages of grief.