Photo by ORNELLA BINNI on Unsplash
ONLY after three full years is there
now the drawn-out dawn of a new era. New perspective continues to grow.
The stages of grief theory was of
course posited by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (and David Kessler). It involves
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. The strength of
the model is it highlights real stages we go through as we experience loss. One
of its weaknesses is it’s not linear — the stages tend to reoccur chaotically.
But it’s overall flow is true.
Here are my observations of the
grief I’ve experienced over the past three years:
DENIAL – I’ve
written a lot about our experience of grief losing Nathanael, which seems to
eclipse the hundreds of articles I’d already written on grief previously — viewed
through the lens of divorce. Much of what I’ve ever written is true to my
experience, but some of it is aspirational. I’m an appreciative communicator
and person, believing the best in others and myself — too much at times. And
some of that I see as denial — the idealism that confounds realism. It’s the
strength of light, but it’s also the weakness of not bearing the world well. I
can admit that weakness now. I have often so wanted a particular better reality that I have attempted to
wish it into creation.
Of course, life never quite works
out that way.
ANGER – I’ve
dealt with a lot of anger over the past three-plus years. It’s had a negative
and regrettable impact on some crucial relationships. My anger revealed fear,
and grief like nothing else breeds fear. Often pride has risen up, but it was
truly fear that underpinned it. I have hated admitting my anger, as if pride
would not allow exposure of such an odious weakness. No man wants to have an
anger management issue, but my anger manifested mainly in ways that led to my
own demise. I’ve had to pay for it. No one ever excuses it as a product of
grief.
BARGAINING – linked
somewhat to the comments I’ve made in ‘denial’, I’ve bargained so much through
the past three years, mainly due to peripheral
losses (that hurt just as much if not more than the central loss). I’ve
bargained with God for the work that I’ve lost and therefore wanted back. And
yet, the grief process has suggested I’ve had to grow through it, because not
one iota of bargaining has worked. I’ve had to learn through not having the
work that the work is superfluous. I am not defined simply by what job I do.
DEPRESSION – I can
chart my progress with depression quite easily. Early in the three-plus year
period I had low days, but the season was punctuated by never being too far
from the black dog. More recently I’ve faced significant challenges — 2016 was
the hardest year of my life thus far — and yet those low days don’t defeat me
like they have, nor am I anywhere near the black dog these days. But I know the
black dog well enough to know I’ll never be too far ahead of it.
ACCEPTANCE – I
honestly have felt in the acceptance zone from day one, and yet I’ve
experienced the full grief experience — all stages seemingly at the same time
on occasion. Sometimes it’s hard to know how much ‘acceptance’ I truly
experience as I endeavour to wish it into creation. Somehow acceptance has
elements of the other four — denial, anger, bargaining, depression — in it.
***
Nobody ever tells you how hard it
is to hold your world together in grief. And sometimes people simply don’t understand.
Nor do some want to.
You can experience compassion from
ninety percent of your world, but if the crucial ten percent regales without
kindness your whole world is easily fractured. Such as it is with grief.
Grief is the embodiment of all
stages — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — some days all five
at once.
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