In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler Ross identified five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  It is now believed that there is no standard sequence or time frame for these stages. Grief will plot it’s own individual course. Finding help and connecting with others will encourage healing. Be kind to yourself as you find sort through confusing and sometimes conflicting emotions.

Loss breaks the rhythm of life. It changes us. Contemplating death removes us from what we logically know and brings us closer to the great beyond. As we struggle through fear, sadness, shock and pain we may find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, involved in an unanticipated process of self-discovery.  Relationships can become awkward and shift uncomfortably. Things that ordinarily reside beneath the surface can rise to a conscious level. with surprising and unsettling results. Questions we have long evaded demand to be addressed. There is neither a single way to grieve nor only one way to understand our mortality.  Death confronts us without mercy. We have no choice but to face it.