Lingering Presence: A Study Using the Human Becoming Hermeneutic Method

The purpose of this human becoming hermeneutic research was to explore the meaning of lingering presence. The emergent meanings were: (a) A lingering presence surfaces in the cherished remembered which changes moment to moment as new experiences arise in the now and shed different light on the was and will be; (b) a lingering presence is lived in private ways, yet with others in a different alone-togetherness; and (c) a lingering presence is living with the familiar-unfamiliar in the now moment, while moving beyond with different possibles. The findings are dis-cussed in relation to how they contribute to nursing knowledge development. Humans are connected with loved ones even after death (Harper, 1991). Presence with another is at many di-mensions of the universe. The presence of apparently absent persons is evident in the many ways that others keep them alive through pictures, songs, stories, jewelry, ceremonial services, letters, and so on. While reading Brown’s (1992) text, A Promise to Remember: The NAMES Project Book of Letters, the notion of lingering presence emerged for this author whose theoretical per-spective is the human becoming school of thought (Parse, 1998). In order to un-derstand lingering presence more fully, a human becoming hermeneutic method (Cody, 1995a, 2001; Parse, 1995, 1998, 2001) study was conducte