Bargaining

On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D., David Kessler

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Before a loss, it seems you will do anything if only your loved one may be spared. "Please, God," you bargain, "I will never be angry at my wife again if you'll just let her live." After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. "What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others? Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?"

We become lost in a maze of "if only..." or "What if..." statements. We want life returned to what it was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: find the tumor sooner, recognize the illness more quickly, stop the accident from happening... if only, if only, if only.

Guilt is often bargaining's companion. The "if onlys" cause us to find fault with ourselves and what we "think" we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt.

As Howard turned seventy-five, he was determined to keep himself and his sixty-six-year-old wife, Millie, in good health. He had read somewhere that walking every day would keep them fit, possibly ward off Alzheimers, and help them sleep better. Millie knew it was easier to go along with the program than to resist.

On the sixth day, after they returned from a busy morning of errands, Howard got ready for their walk. Millie looked at Howard and said, "Do we have to do this every day? A day off won't hurt."

Howard lectured, "It takes thirty days to create a habit. We have to do this every day, no matter what."

Millie rolled her eyes and said, "Can we at least wait until later? We just got in."

He grabbed her sweater. "Let's just get this over with. You'll be happy when it's done."

They walked a block and stepped into the crosswalk. When they were halfway across the street a car came barreling around the corner and struck them, Millie first, then Howard. In a moment, a disoriented Howard looked up and saw Millie lying on the pavement a few feet away. Suddenly someone was asking him if he was okay. He responded, "My wife!" The paramedics assured him that they were taking care of her.

At the hospital Howard was treated for numerous bruises and a broken arm. Millie was not so fortunate. She had sustained massive internal injuries and was taken to surgery.

Howard sat, surrounded by family, repeating over and over in his mind, "Please, God, let her live — I'll never make Millie do anything she doesn't want to do... I'll be a better person... you'll see, I'll volunteer, I'll devote my life to you... please, not now."

The surgeon walked in an hour later and said, "I'm sorry, we couldn't save her."

People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another, and back again to the first one.

For Howard, his first days alone were a bag of mixed emotions. "She can't be gone," he'd say. Then he'd feel rage when he learned the car that hit his wife was in the process of being stolen. At bedtime, he'd bargain again. "Please, God, let me fall asleep and wake up realizing this was all a dream. I will do anything to have her back."

For the next few minutes he'd run a fantasy of waking up with Millie next to him. He tells her about the horrible nightmare he had. Over breakfast they laugh as he promises from now on they will walk only if they both really want to.

His thoughts were bargaining with all the what ifs... "What if I had said, 'Sure, we can walk later'? What if I had never read the article on walking?"

His family would have to remind him that he wasn't responsible for the accident. "You were trying to keep her healthy," they'd say, "not leading her to her death. You had no way of knowing that some reckless driver in a stolen car was about to come flying around the corner." They thought of his reaction as one of guilt.

He would tell them that he knew it wasn't his fault. Bargaining for him was his escape from the pain, a distraction from the sad reality of his life without her.

In his first six months, denial, anger, and a lot of bargaining were his constant companions. They would eventually lead him to depression, still mixed with the "if onlys" of bargaining. Acceptance came in bits and pieces over the next few years.

For Howard, bargaining was a key stage, since he was still holding a piece of the alternate future in which his wife's death never happened. Bargaining can be an important reprieve from pain that occupies one's grief. He never believed the bargaining; he just found relief in it momentarily.

In other cases, bargaining can help our mind move from one state of loss to another. It can be a way station that gives our psyche the time it may need to adjust. Bargaining may fill the gaps that our strong emotions generally dominate, which often keep suffering at a distance. It allows us to believe that we can restore order to the chaos that has taken over. Bargaining changes over time. We may start out bargaining for our loved one to be saved. Later, we may even bargain that we might die instead of our loved one.

When we accept that they are going to die we may bargain that their death will be painless. After a death, bargaining often moves from the past to the future. We may bargain that we will see our loved ones again in heaven. We may bargain and ask for a respite from illnesses in our family, or that no other tragedies visit our loved ones. A mother who loses a child may bargain that her other children remain safe and healthy.

In his well-known song "Tears in Heaven," Eric Clapton writes about his young son who fell tragically to his death. Some of the lyrics could be interpreted as the bargaining stage, when he wonders if he will stop crying once he finally gets to heaven.

As we move through the bargaining process, the mind alters past events while exploring all those "what if" and "if only" statements. Sadly, the mind inevitably comes to the same conclusion... the tragic reality is that our loved one is truly gone.

Copyright " 2005 by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Family Limited Partnership and David Kessler, Inc.

About the Author

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross earned a place as the best-loved and most-respected authority on the subjects of death and dying. Through her many books, as well as her years working with terminally ill children, AIDS patients, and the elderly, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross brought comfort and understanding to millions coping with their own deaths or the death of a loved one. Dr. Kübler-Ross, whose books have been translated into twenty-seven languages, passed away in 2004 at the age of seventy-eight. Before her death, she and David Kessler completed work on their second collaboration, On Grief and Grieving.

David Kessler is a journalist, motivational speaker and the author of Life Lessons. David has helped hundreds of men, women and children face death with peace, dignity and courage. His experiences with end of life care and death have taken him from Auschwitz concentration camp to Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying Destitute in Calcutta, India. His services have been used by Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie Fisher and Marianne Williamson when their loved ones faced death. He also worked with Anthony Perkins, Michael Landon and billionaire Armand Hammer when they faced their own deaths.