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2001 14: 316Nurs Sci QSteven L. Baumann, Karen A. Carroll and Gloria A. Damgaard

An International Human Becoming Hermeneutic Study of Tom Hegg's a Cup of Christmas Tea  

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Nursing Science Quarterly, 14:4, October 2001Hermeneutic Study

An International Human Becoming HermeneuticStudy of Tom Hegg’s A Cup of Christmas Tea

Steven L. Baumann, RN; PhDAssociate Professor, Hunter College of the City University of New York

Karen A. Carroll, RN; MSNProject Coordinator, Nursing Information Systems, Department of

Clinical Education, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago

Gloria A. Damgaard, RN; MSNursing Education Specialist, South Dakota Board of Nursing, Sioux Falls

Brian Millar, RN; MSNLecturer in Nursing Studies, School of Nursing, University ofWales College of Medicine, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom

Anthony J. Welch, RN; MEdSenior Lecturer, Department of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Life Science,

RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

This article seeks to contribute to human becoming theory and to nursing by providing an international human be-coming hermeneutic study of Thomas Hegg’s A Cup of Christmas Tea. The human becoming hermeneutic methodwas used in this study to discover emergent meanings about human experiences. Guided by the method, the authorsdiscovered three emergent meanings: honoring the cherished; communing with the was, is, and will be; and tri-umphing with new vision. These meanings were synthesized by the authors. A Cup of Christmas Tea is the story ofthe way triumphing with new vision arises with honoring the cherished in communing with the was, is, and will be.The conclusion for families and nurses is that by remaining open to all possibilities that exist in each now, momentsof serendipitous togetherness can transform human trepidation and negative views of later life.

A hermeneutic study of a work of lit-erature is a rigorous dialogue with thetext of that work aimed at discoveringsignificant understanding about what itmeans to be human. Such understand-ing is critical if nursing science is to beconcerned with the quality of humanexistence. Cody (1995) applied a her-meneutic method and Parse’s (1981,1998) human becoming theory to WaltWhitman’s Leaves of Grass (1892/1983) and discovered valuable knowl-edge about the self and the world.Dwelling with lines of Whitman’s po-etry, such as “I will show that whateverhappens to anybody, it may be turn’d to

beautiful results . . . nothing can happenmore beautiful than death” (cited inCody, 1995, p. 287) and “I celebratemyself, and sing myself, and what I as-sume you shall assume, for every atombelonging to me as good belongsto you” (cited in Cody, 1995, p. 290).Cody interpreted Whitman’s view ofhealth as “contentment with the self asthe who one is in the face of challengesand hardships. Death is beautiful, a nat-ural continuation of life to be embracedwith the same joy with which one cele-brates life itself” (pp. 287-301).

Cody (1995) and Parse (1998) haveexplicated a method, similar to Gada-mer’s (1960) hermeneutic method, thatprovides a valuable avenue to under-standing human experience and health

for nursing. They suggest that if nursingis to be concerned about the quality oflife, then the study of the humanities isas important as the study of the naturalsciences. The purpose of this herme-neutic human becoming study is tobetter understand being human and con-tribute to the human becoming schoolof thought. It also seeks to exemplify aprocess of international nursing theory–based research. Five nurse researchersfrom three continents coauthored thisreport after conducting the study.

Nursing Science Quarterly, Vol. 14 No. 4,October 2001, 316-321© 2001 Sage Publications

Keywords: family nursing, herme-neutics, human becoming theory

A Cup of Christmas Tea

Thomas Hegg is a writer who lives inEden Prairie, Minnesota. He, with illus-trator Warren Hanson, published A Cupof Christmas Tea in 1982. According toW. Hanson (personal communication,1999), Hegg was urged to publish hiswork by his church congregation afterhe read it to them. The lines of the poemare primarily the thoughts and feelingsof a young man who receives an invita-tion from his great aunt to visit her for achat and a cup of tea. The poem beginswith the fairly common complaintabout how traditions can lose theirmeaning in fast-paced, youth-centeredmaterialistic societies but soon focuseson the young man’s struggles regardingthe request for a visit. The great aunt inrelationship with her nephew demon-strates how generosity can triumph overskepticism, fear, illness, and time. Thenarrator’s initial reluctance to visit hisgreat aunt can be considered a kind ofemptiness, which is fed by stereotyping(ageism) and reductionistic develop-mental theories. The story shows how asimple but gracious celebration of acherished tradition can renew relation-ships, transfigure fears, and give respiteto busy lives. The story suggests thatnew possibilities can arise when one re-mains open to the was, is, and will be.

The text provides little demographicdata about the two characters in thestory, except to reveal that the man has abrother and parents and that his parentsencourage him to visit his great aunt.The man is described as living in thenewer suburbs, whereas his greataunt lives in the older part of town, acommon pattern in North America(Rybczynski, 1995). The title and the il-lustrations of the book suggest that thisthree-generation family celebratesChristmas with many traditional sym-bols and rituals. Later, the poem departsfrom these sentimental elements to re-veal that the man makes the visit withconsiderable apprehension and reluc-tance but is joyfully surprised with theexperience.

Method

Hermeneutics is a concept andmethod the significance of which hasgrown in contemporary thought andnursing. The term hermeneutics meansinterpretation, and it derives its mean-ing from the Greek word hermaneuein(The American Heritage Talking Dic-tionary, 1996), and hermeneutical ef-forts can be seen in the literature fromancient Greece (Vattimo, 1997). Use ofhermeneutics expanded in Europe dur-ing and after the Protestant Reforma-tion, at which time scholars, freed froma single, authoritative interpretation ofreality (for example, papal authority inRoman Catholicism), sought to find arigorous method to get at the meaningsof religious literature. Hermeneutics istherefore deeply associated with mo-dernity and, for some, the secularizationof Western society. In effect, there areno facts, only interpretations (Vattimo,1997). Hermeneutics usually includes athorough study of the context of thework and the author’s worldview. Itconsiders the parts of a narrative in thecontext of the whole document and isseen as containing the meaning of thewhole.

In the 19th century, philosopherssuch as Schleiermacher and Dilthey ap-plied hermeneutic inquiry to nonsacredtexts, including verbal and nonverbalproductions, as well as historical andcurrent sources. These efforts reflect the19th-century challenge that all knowl-edge should follow the model of thephysical sciences, which was increas-ingly dominating society. Diltheysought to secure for literature and his-tory a status that was on par with that ofthe natural sciences. Researchers usinghermeneutics in the human sciences andhuman science–based nursing seek toexplain, understand, or decipher texts asa way of understanding human beings(Palmer, 1969).

In the 20th century, Heidegger(1971) connects hermeneutics to hisconcern with ontology, which centerson the question of the meaning of being.

Heidegger uses hermeneutics in his as-sault on the established arguments andconclusions of metaphysics, the branchof philosophy that studies ultimates(Vattimo, 1997). He sees interpretationas a rigorous method and something es-sential to what it is to be human. ForHeidegger, to exist as a human beingmeans to hold oneself open to all being.He links poetry to truth and describesgenuine thinking as poetic thinking. Heagrees with the German poet Hölderlinthat “to be a poet in a destitute timemeans: to attend, singing, to the traceof the fugitive gods” (p. 94). The20th century is considered destitute byHeidegger not only because of how theworld has secularized, but because hu-mans do not understand their own na-ture. For him, death in modern societyhas become an enigma, and the meaningof pain is no longer clear.

Gadamer (1960) applies hermeneu-tics to aesthetic, cultural, historical, andliterary works. Like Heidegger, hestresses the historicity, finitude, truth,and value of poetic texts. He says that inworld literature, there is something thattranscends the time and “world” inwhich the work was written (p. 162).These traces of universal truths couldonly be brought back into lived experi-ence by the process of understanding.Thus, he considers literature as a placewhere art and science merge. Gadamerfurther posits hermeneutics as a fusionof horizons. He sees a horizon as a wayto look beyond the structures of mean-ing that remain unexamined to “see itbetter” (p. 305). The researcher partici-pates in the fusion of the horizons by en-tering into the tradition of the text. Inthis work, the fusion of horizons is un-derstanding the meaning of the textthrough the interpretation by the re-searchers. Parse and Gadamer (1998)agree that a rigorous process of inter-pretation of texts revises what is knownabout being human by dwelling withworks of literature or art. Thus, this isseen as an appropriate research methodof published works of literature for fur-ther developing the human becoming

Hermeneutic Study 317

theory and understanding individualsand families.

Cody (1995) used a hermeneuticmethod to study selected poems of WaltWhitman. He interpreted Whitman’spoetry in light of Parse’s (1981, 1998)human becoming theory. In the humanbecoming school of thought, the human-universe-health process is seen as amultidimensional unity. Human beingsare seen as coparticipating with thatwhich is given by knowing and choos-ing. The three principles of the humanbecoming theory are structuring mean-ing multidimensionally, cocreatingrhythmical patterns of relating, andcotranscending with the possibles(Parse, 1998, p. 58). Nursing inquiryfrom such a perspective is focused ondiscovering the meaning of lived expe-riences.

Cody (1995) and R. R. Parse (per-sonal communication, December 17,1999) have explicated the three pro-cesses of the human becoming herme-neutic method as discoursing, interpret-ing, and understanding. Parse (personalcommunication, December 17, 1999)further explicated the method as dis-coursing with penetrating engaging, in-terpreting with quiescent beholding,and understanding with inspiring envis-aging. In this study, the researchers ac-tively engaged the text A Cup of Christ-mas Tea (Hegg, 1982) as open beingscocreating with the text. The human be-coming hermeneutic method seeks todiscover emergent meanings about hu-man experiences, which contribute toknowledge and understanding to guidefurther research and practice (Parse,1998, 2001).

Significance forNursing Science

The purpose of a human becominghermeneutic study is to gain under-standing of human lived experiences re-lated to health and to advance nursingscience. The phenomena under studyare lived experiences captured in the de-scriptions from published texts orartforms. In this study, five nurse re-searchers, three from the United States

(Baumann, Carroll, Damgaard), onefrom Wales (Millar), and one from Aus-tralia (Welch), worked individually andcollectively to explicate a new under-standing of lived experiences related topersonal health.

The Trajectory of the Study

The trajectory of the study of thistext followed the three processes of thehermeneutic spiral: discoursing withpenetrating engaging, interpreting withquiescent beholding, and understandingwith inspiring envisaging (Parse, 2001).Cody (1995) views hermeneutics as aspiral, rather than a circle as describedby Gadamer (1960), because the re-searcher progresses to new thinkingabout the meaning of lived experiences.These processes are seen as simulta-neous. The penetrating engaging of thetext by this group of researchers beganwith each researcher’s sharing with theothers images and meanings that aroseas he or she read and reflected onHegg’s (1982, 1992) work. Guided bythe human becoming theory, the re-searchers repeatedly returned to the textas they moved beyond the religious andcultural specifics in the story to explorethe more universal experiences. The re-searchers recalled and shared their rec-ollections of family visits and holidays.The nephew’s concerns and feelings,and later joy, resonated with the re-searchers’ own experiences of familyand holidays. Each line of the poem wasconsidered in the context of the wholestory. One researcher (Damgaard) wasable to meet with the illustrator of thestory to discuss how the book evolvedand gain information about the authorand illustrator. Hanson said that he hadan aunt in a nursing home when Heggapproached him and that this was part ofthe reason he agreed to do the illustra-tions for the book. First individually andthen as a group the researchers movedthrough penetrating engaging with a qui-escent beholding of the text and in in-spiring envisaging discovered threeemergent meanings: honoring the cher-ished; communing with the was, is, andwill be; and triumphing with new vision.

Emergent Meanings

Honoring the Cherished

The researchers agreed that honor-ing the cherished was a significantemergent meaning of the text and onethat reflected the first principle of hu-man becoming theory: “structuringmeaning multidimensionally is cocreat-ing reality through the languaging ofvaluing and imaging” (Parse, 1998, p.35). Various passages from the textwere seen as contributing to the mean-ing of honoring the cherished (see Table1 for some quotations related to honor-ing the cherished). Extending an invita-tion for a visit during a holiday seasonwas seen as honoring a person and a re-lationship. Likewise, the decision to ac-cept an invitation and travel to make avisit is honoring, particularly when thatprocess is difficult. Imaging, which isdescribed in human becoming theory asa process of coming to know, was seenin the nephew’s considerations of howhis great aunt had been and how shemight be now. According to the poem,he was aware that his “old Great Aunt”was housebound now because of a“mild stroke,” and he assumed she had“gone downhill.” The meaning of theterm old in the nephew’s early thoughtssuggests that, for him, being of ad-vanced age carries connotations of fra-gility and decline. His recordedthoughts suggest that he assumed thatthe person he once knew and enjoyedbeing with no longer existed; yet hecherished her. He feared that seeing hernow would be for him “painful” and de-pressing.

According to the poem, his reasonsnot to go are eroded by “an acid rain ofguilt” as he overcomes his reluctanceand fear and makes the visit. His fearsare quickly eased by his gracious aunt,and his visit is filled with great delight,in part because he sees how alive andgracious toward him his great aunt re-mains. He reexperiences the joy of theholiday and of the close loving relation-ship as he remembered them: “Likemagic I was six again” (Hegg, 1982).He is surprised that she still has manyobjects that he loved when he was a

318 Nursing Science Quarterly, 14:4, October 2001

child, including cards he himself hadmade for her. The woman identified inthe story as the great aunt honors andpreserves this family’s past and showshow sharing cherished traditions withloved ones can bring meaning to thepresent and hope for the future as thewas, is, and will be are lived all at once.The ability to be fully and openly atten-tive to one’s past, present, and future, allat once, is evident in this loving encoun-ter. The attentive presence offered bythe woman in Hegg’s work also is hon-oring. She honors this young man by herkeen interest in the details of his life, herinsistence on being open: “She was stillpassionately interested in everything Idid” (Hegg, 1982). From a human be-coming perspective, this story suggeststhat the “magic” of living cherished hol-idays together with the meaning of fam-ily relies on individuals’ freely choos-ing to value others, relationships,beliefs, and traditions.

Valuing in human becoming theoryis another concept related to structuringmeaning. It is described as a process ofconfirming–not-confirming cherishedbeliefs in light of one’s personalworldview (Parse, 1998, p. 37). Theparadoxical rhythm of confirming–not-confirming is seen in what one choosesto focus on in one’s situation and rela-tionships. These choices and their con-sequences become a part of one’s beingas a matrix of principles and ideas thathelps one to hold firm in the face of ill-ness, uncomfortable feelings, and dis-tractions. The great aunt is choosing tobe positive as she risks being disap-pointed by her great nephew. Her great

nephew expresses his paradoxicalrhythm of confirming–not-confirminghis relationship by honoring the memo-ries of his great aunt.

The third concept connected withstructuring meaning in the human be-coming theory is languaging. It repre-sents words and gestures as well as si-lences and movements, often expressedin paradoxical patterns and rhythms.The text of A Cup of Christmas Tea con-tains only a few direct quotations. Oneof the most important is the letter sentby the great aunt: “Of course, I’ll under-stand completely if you can’t. But if youfind you have some time, how wonder-ful if we could have a little chat andshare a cup of Christmas tea” (Hegg,1982). The graciousness of the invita-tion and the use of shared symbols andwords is part of the languaging of mean-ing by the great aunt with her nephew asthey come together to see each otheranew. The silence and meanings behindthe words, gestures, and symbols are inpart a product of the reader’s pace andstyle of reading, suggesting that lan-guaging is always both unique for eachperson and shared with the other.

Communing With the Was,Is, and Will Be

The second emergent meaning dis-covered in the text is described here ascommuning with the was, is, and willbe. Communing, as used here, denotes aspecial relation with, such as in thephrase, “communing with nature.” Inthis story, the special relationship is be-tween the chief characters and com-muning with the human-universe pro-

cess and time. This communing is a spe-cial form of multidimensional relating.It is connected to the principle of humanbecoming, “cocreating rhythmical pat-terns of relating is living the paradoxicalunity of revealing-concealing andenabling-limiting while connecting-separating” (Parse, 1998, p. 42). Centralto the story in A Cup of Christmas Tea isa loving process between two membersof a family from different generationsand parts of town. Like many cross-generational family visits, the one inthis story is neither simple nor particu-larly easy as it spans the remembered,the now, and the unknown possibles. Aninvitation is a request that can be re-ceived with considerable trepidation. Inthe human becoming hermeneuticmethod, penetrating engaging, quies-cent beholding, and inspiring envisag-ing arise with dwelling with the mean-ing in a text or artform. The textprovides few details of the individualsinvolved and the family, and accordingto W. Hanson (personal communica-tion, 1999), there are no drawings ofcharacters in the book so that readerswill be more inclined to reflect on theirown experiences. Also not mentioned inthe book or story is that Thomas Hegg,as he has disclosed to interviewers, suf-fers from periods of depression (Rob-erts, 1999). Perhaps this is intimated inthe nephew’s concern about what mightarise from a visit and conversation withhis great aunt.

The great aunt’s stroke is in the nowfor the nephew, as is her pattern of walk-ing and her use of a crutch and brace, yethe remembers her free of such aids. Part

Hermeneutic Study 319

Table 1Quotations Reflecting the Emergent Meaning of Honoring the Cherished

I got a letter from my old Great Aunt. It read: “Of course, I’ll understand completely if you can’t, but if you find you have some time, how wonderful if we couldhave a little chat and share a cup of Christmas tea.”

I drove in from the suburbs to the older part of town.The scent of candied oranges of cinnamon and pine, the antique wooden soldiers in their military line; The porcelain Nativity I’d always loved so much . . . the

Dresden and the crystal I’d been told I mustn’t touch.And here, among old Christmas cards, so lovingly displayed, a special place of honor for the ones we kids had made.And there, beside her rocking chair, the center of it all . . .My Great Aunt stood and said how nice it was I’d come to call.I lost the phoney breeziness I use when I get tense. She was still passionately interested in everything I did. She was positive. Encouraging. Like when I was a kid.

NOTE: From A Cup of Christmas Tea by T. Hegg and W. Hanson, 1982, Minneapolis, MN: Waldman House Press. Copyright © 1982 by T. Hess and W. Hanson.Reprinted with permission.

of the “enabling-limiting” (Parse, 1998)of communing with the was, is, and willbe in this story is the great aunt’s can-dor, encouragement, and insistence onhearing the “bits” of her great nephew’slife (see Table 2 for additional quota-tions related to communion). Thesequalities move the conversation beyond“phoney breeziness” and allow the re-union that helps make “Christmaspast . . . alive . . . intact” (Hegg, 1982).Communing with the was, is, and willbe denotes a non-linear experience oftime, as serendipitous togethernessarises between two family members ofdifferent generations.

According to human becoming the-ory, rhythmicity includes the paradox ofconnecting-separating. In the text ofHegg’s (1982) poem, there is not onlythe coming together of two people butalso their separations—from other peo-ple, from other activities, and from pre-viously held views. The text records therenewing of an “old relation,” suggest-ing that the nephew has not visited forsome time, yet in the middle of the visithe was “alone with feelings that I hadn’tfelt in years.” The text invites the readerto further quiescent ponderings of cher-

ished and not-so-cherished memoriesand experiences. Vanier (1998) hasstated that nourishing encounters “canlead us into other gardens of life, into anew and deeper vulnerability, and into anew understanding of the uni-verse . . . and the beauty and depth ofeach and every human being” (p. 68). Heconsiders the later stages of life as “ajourney toward communion” (Vanier,1997, p. 124). Thus, communing withthe was, is, and will be is significant inunderstanding human experiences.

Triumphing With New Vision

The third emergent meaning discov-ered in this hermeneutic study of TomHegg’s (1982) work is triumphing withnew vision. A Cup of Christmas Tea isseen here as a story about triumphingwith new vision of a great aunt and hernephew (Parse, 1998). This emergentmeaning reflects the third principle ofthe human becoming theory, “cotrans-cending with the possibles in poweringunique ways of originating in the pro-cess of transforming” (Parse, 1998, p.46).

Powering is described by Parse(1998) as the “pushing-resisting pro-

cess of affirming-not affirming being inlight of non-being” (p. 47). Powering inthis story is seen in the great aunt’s per-severance in the face of adversity andher ability to remain deeply interestedin others (see Table 3 for quotations re-lated to triumphing with new vision). Itis also seen in the nephew’s triumphingwith new vision of seeing his great auntdifferently without misconceptions andfear. The crutch in this story, as it was inDickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843/1997), can be seen as a symbol of thatwhich challenges human beings butalso that which can open them to deeperunderstandings and relationships withnew possibilities. This view is counterto the popular view that a crutch is asymbol of decline and approachingdeath. In Sophocles’ play Oedipus theKing, Oedipus must answer a riddle:“What creature walks on four feet in themorning, two feet at noon, and three feetin the evening?” Oedipus survives deathby correctly answering that it is a hu-man being. The mistaken assumption ofsuch a theory of human development, aswell as of the nephew’s preconceptionin Hegg’s poem, is that human life is anindividual cycle of growth and decline.

320 Nursing Science Quarterly, 14:4, October 2001

Table 2Quotations Reflecting the Emergent Meaning of Communing With the Was, Is, and Will Be

They said: “She’d love to see you. What a nice thing it would be . . . ”I remembered her as vigorous, as funny and as bright. I remembered Christmas Eves when she regaled us half the night.Before my eyes and ears and nose was Christmas past . . . alive . . . intact.Like magic, I was six again, deep in a Christmas spell, steeped in the million memories the boy inside knew well.She listened very patiently, then smiled and said, “What’s new?” Thoughts and words began to flow. I started making sense. I lost the phoney breeziness I use

when I get tense. She was passionately interested in everything I did. She was positive. Encouraging. Like when I was a kid. Simple generalities still sent herinto fits. She demanded the specifics. The particulars. The bits.

She spoke with utter candor, and with humor and good grace.On wings of hospitality, she flew to brew the tea. I sat alone with feelings that I hadn’t felt in years. . . . the impossibly good cookies she still somehow baked her-

self.

NOTE: From A Cup of Christmas Tea by T. Hegg and W. Hanson, 1982, Minneapolis, MN: Waldman House Press. Copyright © 1982 by T. Hess and W. Hanson.Reprinted with permission.

Table 3Quotations Reflecting the Emergent Meaning of Triumphing With New Vision

Though housebound now, my folks had said it hadn’t hurt her pride.Then defying the reality of crutch and straightened knee . . .And though her thick bifocals seemed to crack and spread her eyes, their milky and refracted depths lit up with young surprise.Before my eyes and ears and nose was Christmas past . . . alive . . . intact.Like magic, I was six again, deep in a Christmas spell . . .But these rich, tactile memories became quite pale and thin, when measured by the Christmas my Great Aunt kept deep within. Her body halved and nearly spent,

but my Great Aunt was whole. I saw a Christmas miracle . . . the triumph of a soul.

NOTE: From A Cup of Christmas Tea by T. Hegg and W. Hanson, 1982, Minneapolis, MN: Waldman House Press. Copyright © 1982 by T. Hess and W. Hanson.Reprinted with permission.

Sophocles and individual developmenttheories fail to appreciate the interwo-ven aspects of human existence.

In the human becoming theory theconcept of originating is seen as “in-venting new ways of conforming-notconforming in the certainty-uncertaintyof living” (Parse, 1998, p. 49). Tri-umphing with new vision in Hegg’s(1982) story is that new possibilitiesarise at all ages and that aging shouldnot be feared as a “going downhill.”New possibilities for living, freedom,and generosity arise with time and ex-perience: “Her body halved and nearlyspent, but my Great Aunt was whole.”

The last of the nine concepts in hu-man becoming theory is transforming,which is described as “shifting the viewof the familiar-unfamiliar, the changingof change in coconstituting anew in adeliberate way” (Parse, 1998, p. 51).Transforming can be seen in the abilityof a loving relationship to give rise totriumphing with new vision seeing thefamiliar in a new light, such as perceiv-ing the great aunt as still vital andwhole, affirming being with the poten-tial of nonbeing. The nephew’s imagi-nation comes alive again, banishing hisskepticism about later life and illness,which had clouded his view earlier inthe story. He now sees his great aunt aswhole again, and his fears about visitingare now seen as unjustified. Later life isno longer associated only with declineand frailty, but with grace and warmth.Human generosity thus triumphs overfear and time.

The third process in the human be-coming hermeneutic method is under-standing through inspiring envisaging(R. R. Parse, personal communication,December 17, 1999). Dialoguing withHegg’s (1982) text and with each other,this international group of researchersdiscovered three emergent meaningsabout human experiences: honoring thecherished; communing with the was, is,and will be; and triumphing with newvision. When taken together, these

meanings offer an understanding ofHegg’s text. A Cup of Christmas Tea isthe story of the way triumphing withnew vision arises with honoring thecherished in communing with the was,is, and will be. This understanding isrelevant across the cultures of the re-searchers, representing three continents(North America, Europe, and Australia)and three geographic areas of theUnited States (New York, Illinois, andSouth Dakota). The emergent meaningsand understandings as synthesized canguide further nursing research. In par-ticular, timelessness, which can arise inthe celebration of cherished connec-tions and holidays, is a phenomenonthat requires further study.

Family relationships, particularlythose beyond the immediate or nuclearfamily, in many modern societies are of-ten distant and unaffirming. This her-meneutic study suggests that peoplecocreate their families and that theirlives are shaped by the consequences oftheir choices about these connectionsand separations. Such choices bringnew meaning, connections, and lifelongtransformations and can reduce thenumber of people of all ages who arelonely, and yet have much to share.

The meaning of Tom Hegg’s (1982)poem holds special significance fornursing, because nurses often receive“invitations” from their patients notonly to do something for them but alsobe with them, and not unlike the greatnephew, this request is often receivedwith reservations and concerns. The au-thors of this hermeneutic study hold thatwhen nurses are open to all of the possi-bilities with each person who invitesthem to “visit,” then honoring the cher-ished; communing with the was, is, andwill be; and triumphing with new visioncan surface. This hermeneutic studysuggests that many stories and poemssuch as this hold value for nursing sci-ence. The authors hold that the world’sliterature is a vast resource of knowl-edge and wisdom that can humanize

modern healthcare. Hermeneutic nurs-ing studies on literary works are neededto tap this source.

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