On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

We all know intellectually that we don’t have forever. We also know we can’t do it all. But intellect does not inform matters of the heart.

Regrets will always belong to the past. And death has a cruel way of giving regrets more attention than they deserve.

We have seen people choose every possible way to deal with their illness and can tell you that most of the options that keep people up at night regretting would not have made a difference in the outcome.

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The truth is that in most cases, doing things differently may have changed the process but would not have prevented the death.

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In grief we often have only two main thoughts about crying. The first is the overwhelming thought of sadness that hits us. The second is, “I must stop crying.” After many people begin to cry they quickly move to stop this natural phenomenon.

Uncried tears have a way of filling the well of sadness even more deeply. If you have a half hour of crying to do, don’t stop at twenty minutes. Let yourself cry it all out. It will stop on its own. If you cry till your last tear, you will feel released.

We live in a society that views tears as a weakness and a face of stone as strength. Whether you cry or not may have more to do with how you were raised than with the nature of your loss.

At times, you may start to cry as if for no reason at all. It may seem it just comes out of the blue, because you are not even consciously thinking about your loss. Unexpected tears remind you that the loss is always there.

Unexpressed tears do not go away; their sadness resides in our bodies and souls. Tears can often be seen as dramatic, too emotional, or a sign of weakness. But in truth, they are an outward expression of inner pain.

Our perception about crying in public is cultural. In some places, not crying is a sign of dignity, whereas in other cultures, not crying for the deceased is considered a sign of dishonor.

Tears are a symbol of life, a part of who we are and what we feel. They live in us and through us. They represent us and reside in our pain.

The truth is that tears are a symbol of life and can be trusted.

Acceptance of death is part of the work that must be done if we are to grieve fully. If crying is part of our outer culture or inner sadness and we have tears to cry, then we should use this wonderful gift of healing without hesitation.

Some people have strong beliefs in angels, guardian angels, while others hope they exist.

It is unnecessary to debate the reality of angels. They are beyond an entity that can be proved or disproved.

After a loved one’s death, we often ponder the idea of them for the first time in our life. They give us hope and they comfort us.

Many believe you cannot die alone, that angels are always present.

Grieving people sometimes say, “In my darkest days, I must have been carried by angels.” They may feel it was their loved one still comforting them from a world beyond their sight. Others think angels were sent by God to reassure them that they were not alone.

We all have angelic moments that we give to each other. They appear as simple acts of kindness, which may seem not to matter that much, but they save lives by lifting others from sadness.

Angels are the extraordinary coming through the ordinary. We need them more than ever in grief, and they always come to help.

When a loved one dies, all the roles they fulfilled are left open. Some we consciously or unconsciously take on ourselves. For other roles, we consciously or unconsciously assign them to someone else, or someone may take them on. Still other roles may be left unfilled.

When you sit with the dying and their family, the loved ones will often say that a part of them is dying too. That is true, but equally true is that a part of the one who died lives on in us.

We often carry a great deal of knowledge, most of which dies with us, but not all. We are always teaching.

Our loved ones play so many parts in our lives.

Whether tangible or vague, there are many roles that can be missed.

“You have not lost all of the things that you loved most about your loved one. They are in you. You can carry them with you for the rest of your life.”

Don’t call and ask what you can do. Just do it. Don’t go to her house this afternoon, stay for an hour, and think you’ve done your part. Think about how you can help her during the next year. Play a role in her grief. That will be the greatest gift you can give her.”

As time passes, however, you may see others grow weary of hearing the story, although you are not yet tired of telling it.

Telling the story is part of the healing of a traumatic event, no different from the trauma of large-scale disaster.

Your heart and mind are joined in one state, pain remembering pain.

Telling the story helps to dissipate the pain. Telling your story often and in detail is primal to the grieving process. You must get it out. Grief must be witnessed to be healed. Grief shared is grief abated.

You will find the story changing over time; not necessarily what happened, but what part you focus on.

As our lives need validation, so do our deaths. The stories we tell give meaning to the fact that our loved one died, which is why, in American Indian cultures, stories are given the highest priority.

The ways we now have in our society to share our loss become fewer as we discount grief and

We are responsible for our health, but we are not the ones to blame for our illnesses.

You cannot grieve only one loss. You may have lost your beloved, but the grief brings into your awareness all the losses that have occurred in your life, past and present.

Another reason we go back to old losses is that we can visit them more easily now that we are older, deeper human beings. We have a larger palette from which to view the loss.

Thankfully, we develop new tools to work with the grief.

The truth about loss is that the resurgence of old pain and grief has an important purpose.

Another loss is the old “you,” the person you were before this loss occurred, the person you will never be again.

Another loss is the world in which your loved one lived and included you.

You also lose the activities you may have done together.

Besides all the external losses, there are the ones that resonate within you—the loss of your beloved as a companion, a sounding board, and a life partner.

It is a tremendous and heartrending adjustment you must make to a new world full of losses. No one can stand where you are and survey all that you have lost. That is for you and you alone to know.

for now, your task is to grieve and feel this loss and all your other losses.

Grief is also the shattering of many conscious and unconscious beliefs about what our lives are supposed to look like.

That is not the way things were supposed to happen. Life was never supposed to be perfect but was always supposed to be long. Disease, earthquakes, accidents, and planes flying into buildings are not supposed to happen. When these things do happen, we not only must grieve the loss, we also must grieve the loss of the belief that it shouldn’t have happened at all.

children grow, we need to update their views on life and death. If we don’t, we perpetuate the beliefs and assumptions that nothing ever goes wrong.

Much like polishing a rock in a tumbler, it is the tumbling of life that makes the diamond.

When a loss hits us, we have not only the particular loss to mourn but also the shattered beliefs and assumptions of what life should be.