Revisiting Stages of Grief
Because these are so fluid I hesitate to mention them to you. A Christian psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, explored five stages years ago, and they are still true to a certain extent. The thing is we are all different, and while we will all go through most of these stages to a point, it is not regimented like three months in each and finally come out of grief in a year. It doesn’t work that way. We women weave in and out of these stages like colored yarn on a loom.
The first time I exhibited what I recognized later as denial was that first morning before dawn when I kept giving my husband mouth-to-mouth resuscitation even though I knew it was no use. Soon after this I kept asking the EMTs when they arrived, “Are you sure? Are you positive?” Denial may last quite a while, but mine that day was brief. I went almost immediately into shock and numbness.
Later I was astonished to realize how furiously angry I became with my husband for starting back to smoking after his first heart attack when he knew better. (I also learned men stick together. A hospital orderly mopping the floor gave my husband a cigarette! I could have shot them both.)
My longest lasting stage was depression. I grieved internally when out in public and tried to avoid social situations, including my church which used to mean a lot to me (isolation.) At night I cried and walked in the moonlight with my dog. My grieving lasted a full three years with occasional periods of well being. Eventually I recognized I had come to the end of the grief journey when the memories became sweet instead of stabbing, but even that was not one defining moment. It happened over a period of months, around the end of three years after Robert’s death.
Here are my approximate stages of grief. Remember, some you may zip through only to revisit later. But eventually you will reach the last one.
1. Disbelief or denial
2. Shock and numbness
3. Mental confusion and disorganization
4. Emotional outbursts, sometimes severe
5. Anger at the deceased or perceived culprit
6. Guilt over things done or left undone
7. Personal isolation from a perceived non-understanding, uncaring world
8. Depression, mild or severe
9. Apathy
10. Acceptance and recovery
My research showed three to twelve different stage models of grief by various experts in the field. I gave you the ten I and other widows whom I interviewed feel are the most common. Remember, you may not experience all of these, or you may run in and out of them like circling the Maypole. Each woman is different, and your marriage was different. Just pray to God and believe that someday you will reach the end of your grief journey.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1 (NRSV)
