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When grief doesn't end: Nursing PhD students bring a classroom theory to Ohio families
October 29, 2026
Most of us think of grief as something with an ending. A loss happens, it hurts, and over time the hurt fades. For many parents of children with developmental disabilities, it doesn't work that way. The sadness can quiet down for months or years and then come back. It might return on the first day of kindergarten, at a cousin's wedding, at a high school graduation, or on the day a young adult ages out of school services. Nurses and researchers have a name for this: chronic sorrow. Last October, two University of Cincinnati College of Nursing PhD students helped bring that name to a room of families, people with disabilities and the professionals who support them.
