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

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: The Five Stages of Grief
Denial, Anger, Barganing, Depression, and Acceptance. The stages have evolved since their introduction, and they have been very misunderstood over the past three decades. They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages.

Chapter 1: Anger
This stage presents itself in many ways: anger at your loved one that he didn't take better care of himself or anger that you didn't take better care of him. Anger does not have to be logical or valid.

Chapter 1: Bargaining
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.

Shortly before her death in 2004, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler, her collaborator, completed the manuscript for this, her final book. On Grief and Grieving is a fitting completion to her work. Thirty-six years and sixteen books ago, Kübler-Ross's groundbreaking On Death and Dying changed the way we talk about the end of life. Now On Grief and Grieving will profoundly influence the way we experience the process of grief.

On Death and Dying began as a theoretical book, an interdisciplinary study of our fear of death and our inevitable acceptance of it. It introduced the world to the now-famous five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. On Grief and Grieving applies these stages to the process of grieving and weaves together theory, inspiration, and practical advice, all based on Kübler-Ross's and Kessler's professional and personal experiences, and is filled with brief, topic-driven stories. It includes sections on sadness, hauntings, dreams, coping, children, healing, isolation, and even the subject of sex during grief.

"I know death is close," Kübler-Ross says at the end of the book, "but not quite yet. I lie here like so many people over the years, in a bed surrounded by flowers and looking out a big window.... I now know that the purpose of my life is more than these stages.... It is not just about the life lost but also the life lived."

In one of their final writing sessions, Kübler-Ross told Kessler, "The last nine years have taught me patience, and the weaker and more bed-bound I become, the more I'm learning about receiving love."

On Grief and Grieving is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's final legacy, one that brings her life's work profoundly full circle.

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.

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.

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