Introduction to my thoughts on grief

Grief: a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed.

Thank you wikipedia.org.

In the 1960's Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced her "grief cycle" which consisted of 5 stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

The model was offered up as a way of explaining how and why "time heals" and how "life goes on", in her hopes to help people deal with death and bereavement a little easier.

When my mom died, over 12 years ago now, my dad used these "stages" as a way to cope and move on and prove that he was ready to "face the world again", as if grief was a "to-do" list to neatly check off until you could move on to the next chore. Within six months he had been in denial, felt angry, bargained, was depressed, and then accepted the events and had written himself a clean bill of mental health and kept it moving. After all, that's what his grief book told him he should do. (In retrospect this was a perfect tool for my poor father to cope. It was exactly what he needed to navigate this new hurdle in his life).

At the ripe and mature age of 13, my whole take on these stages...BULLSHIT.

There was no way that a time line existed for how I was going to feel and when. First of all, she died, I accepted it. As far as I was concerned I had to accept it every day I woke up. She wasn't there, how hard was that to accept? I didn't start out angry because what happened happened. People get cancer and die. It was awful that it happened to my mom (or anyone for that matter) but it happened, being angry was going to get me no where fast .

I later learned, though, that I was right about the grief cycle, at least in my understanding of it. I had to give Dr. Kubler-Ross some credit as I read on about her studies. She didn't bring this to the world as a process, but more of a model or framework. A process would have implied something fixed and consistent, whereas a model is more of a guide.

"People's grief is as individual as their fingerprint".

As with anyone who has lost someone so close, my mom's death has never left me. It is with me every day and affects me every day. My 20's have been harder than my teens in this respect. So being a writer, here I am. I have taken to a blog. This will be my almost day-to-day accounts of what stage of grief I am in according to my theory which is: grief is a cycle. It is a random, never-ending, some days good some days feel-like-shit, acceptance cycle that changes every single day. Today I was angry, tomorrow I could be in denial. Who knows?

It wont always be serious, sometimes funny, sometimes just ramblings of what goes through my mind. But here it is, My 5 Stage of Grief.

Kubler-Ross info taken from wikipedia and http://www.businessballs.com/elisabeth_kubler_ross_five_stages_of_grief.htm