O SENTIDO DO SER APÓS A PERDA DE UM FAMILIAR POR COVID-19: Um estudo filosófico

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has caused changes in the family system and revealed profound questions about mortality and bereavement, about the meaning of existence and of being human in the world, demanding a philosophical understanding of how people cope with and find meaning in their experiences of loss. The study aimed to understand the senses and meanings of life after the loss of a family member to covid19. This was a qualitative, phenomenological study, carried out in the homes of family members, between June and September 2024, using Martin Heidegger as the theoretical-methodological framework. According to the Heideggerian hermeneutic circle, six units of meaning were identified: The “being-quiet” in the face of the threat of not being; The being who can't “see-stay-with”; The being-being in the face of a “painful loss”; The being who “can't even say goodbye”; The being in the face of the “new-work-to-mind” and The being who “belongs-to-God”. The on the family member's life confront the apparent security of their existence, becoming fateful in the construction of their sense of being. The threatening situation of having a family member with covid-19 frightens and resignifies the way of being and directs us towards conscious coping, avoiding the unexpected loss that challenges in the face of “notbeing”. Faced with the death of their loved one, the family member is confronted with the finitude of life, marked by the impossibility of “seeing-being-with”, being deprived of the essential farewell scenario, which a feeling of helplessness and amplifies emotional suffering, causing anguish. This existential makes mourning more difficult and aggravates the feeling of loneliness and fragility, the feeling of being in the face of a “painful loss”, causing suffering due to the silenced pain and the impossibility of “saying goodbye”. The “new-work-to-the- mind” emerges, in which the family member seeks an occupation as a form of distraction, in an attempt to avoid direct with pain and anguish. And in order to find a new meaning to life, as a strategy for overcoming, they transform their own existence in the face of absence, tension and trial, unveiling their, which shapes their spiritual essence, seeking faith in the “being that belongs to God”. The covid-19 pandemic has revealed not only the depth of the experience of mourning the loss of a family member, but also the transformative power of existence itself. The study integrates reflection on mourning, finitude and the role of philosophy in health.