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This essay is an exploration in the process of queering hegemonic paradigms of grieving and body image. I use autoethnography to question my feelings about my own body hair and the sudden death of my mother. I show how experiences of sudden death not only allow us to reflect upon our current relationships and life stories, but help us transform them as well. I take the reader through my own contradictory history with body hair from childhood to the present, through times my mother helped me love it and times others pushed me to hate it. Ultimately, I argue that through writing a deceased loved one’s legacy on our own bodies and holding onto grief, we might not only reframe minor bodily stigmas but also transcend them.

Researchers of bereavement have made great progress in their efforts to show the complexities of the grieving process. At the same time, psychologists have constructed multiple diagnostic categories of grief, commonly accepted prescriptions that further sustain a limiting way of understanding grief and loss. The bereaved either move on and find emotional closure from a loss, or they remained fixated in the emotional trauma of a loss. In this autoethnography, I challenge the assumed static boundaries between these categories by constructing a conversation with my deceased mother to show some of the power of continuing a relationship with the deceased through “re-membering” and the complexities inherent to the lived experience of grief. Through this evocative account, I also suggest possible connections researchers may explore between autoethnography, grief and loss scholarship, and queer theory.

Field notes are written artifacts that represent research data in ethnographic projects. Researchers, after gaining entrée into their fields, will record written observations either while directly observing social interaction or shortly thereafter. These notes are then analyzed in order to develop cultural themes about the social interactions and communities observed and, in some instances, also make sense of the researcher's own reflexive processes and emotions.

Purpose The purpose of this paper to start a conversation on the possibility of future research on afterlife communication in the communication field. Design/methodology/approach The author utilizes autoethnography, a method that blends ethnographic observation with the writing of personal narrative. Findings The author proposes a research agenda for communication scholars to explore the complexity of family stories about postdeath contact. Originality/value The author discusses how utilizing interpersonal communication theories to study relationships with the dead can help researchers understand impact how, when, and if stories of postdeath contact are told.