Most people have probably heard of Kubler-Ross's stages of grief, although probably fewer could name them all. There are five stages; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
The first stage is usually Denial. I say usually because not everyone goes through all of the stages, or for the same length of time. Erich talked about how he grieved for his son and he did not care what people thought about it. Many people will tell the story of the death of their loved one over and over. It is as if they are trying to accept the reality of it. The other reason people continually talk about the deceased person and their recent death is that it is such a devastating event to them. Their whole life has been shattered. It is inconceivable to be talking to someone and that they not even know the person has died.
I found this happening to me and it was very strange. I tend to keep my personal life very private. There are people I have worked with for ten years who never met my husband. Yet, after he died I would find myself telling complete strangers sitting next to me on a plane that my husband had just died.
Almost everyone experiences a sense of unreality at the beginning. So many people have told us that, after a death,
"I kept expecting for him to come in the door one day."
Anger, the next stage, can show itself in different ways. The following is composite of stories we have heard from family members, combined to protect confidentiality,
"Everyone is crying, everyone is sad at the funeral, at the wake. During the Honor Song, I was so mad, it was hard for me to keep quiet. Yes, Donnie had Diabetes, and then had that stroke last year and maybe nobody could have helped that. But smoking three packs a cigarettes a day,being sixty pounds overweight, drinking, popping all those pain pills all the time. You'd think a person would think about how it would make their family feel when they die, the parents, their brothers and sisters, all their friends, all those people who were there crying. I just wanted to go up to the casket and shake my fist at it and say, 'Donnie! Didn't you care about us enough to stop boozing, to stop smoking to stop taking those pills?'"
People may be angry at the deceased for not taking care of themselves. They can be angry just because the person is not there. In December, my daughter will become the first one in her father's family to ever graduate from college - and he won't be there to see it. In 2004, our younger daughter was in the Olympics - and he wasn't there to see it. Then there were those times when the children are arguing, there are bills to be paid, the car has a flat tire and I would think to myself,
"Where the hell are you? I didn't sign up for all of this. I didn't intend to be a single parent. Get your ass back here and help out!"
Of course, intellectually we know that the person did not want to die, but that does not keep us from getting angry. We get angry at others as well, at the doctors for not saving the person, at God for letting this happen.
Bargaining and Depression