The Military School (En)

The five phases of grief

For a long time Maya had been in denial about Mason's death. She didn't want to believe that it was possible. That's what led her to break off all contact with her reality. If Mason had died, when she saw Carina again her feelings would have come to the surface and she would have had to face them.

She thought that maybe, if she stayed holed up, she would see him come home from the mission one day. As if it were a reward for all that suffering.

So she had quickly moved on to anger.  This time she didn't want to. She didn't want to face Carina anymore. She had become cold. She needed sport to vent her frustration. She couldn't talk to her about the past, or she would get her wrath.

There had to be someone to blame for this situation. Maybe she was being punished for her life choices. After all, after fourteen months of relationship with Carina they had been separated, they had held on but now her brother had been taken away from her. Maybe as a punishment.

She had vacillated for a long time between the first four phases.  Going from one to the other constantly without really reaching the last one. More than four years. Her mourning phase was in a loop and she didn't know how to get out of it. Probably because she didn't want to.

The bargaining, had lasted a long time like the other phases. She had distanced herself from reality. She still hoped that it was a nightmare, that maybe he would come home one day and all the pain would go away.

That's also why she hadn't reconnected with Carina. She would have eventually been happy and moved on. But that was it, she didn't want to move on. Yes she loved him, yes she would have been happy, but she would have had to give up Mason and that was inconceivable.

And depression. For four years, every day was rocked by her four phases. And she kept them alive. At least once a day, sadness invaded her.
Anger had come to be directed at herself. For abandoning Carina, for dishonoring her brother's memory.

Four years of depression hidden underneath her sadness, four years without putting a word in, four years without being treated. She was focused on the future, had a new mantra, her eyes always on the finish line, in this case the position of head of the SFD.

And she was well on her way, in less than a year she had made lieutenant and the very next day was working towards the position of captain.

That was without counting Carina. Running into her had changed her plans. As long as she had been alone, it had been easy to focus on a career life, but finding the beautiful Italian woman had made this aspect less important.

The moment she had laid eyes on her, she had felt her heart beating in her chest again and the feeling had come over her. Lightning with happiness and the four years, pain, sorrow and anger had disappeared.

It was what she had been afraid of for so long. But to her great surprise she had not forgotten Mason. Without knowing it she had just returned to the starting point of her mourning phase.

If Carina had been able to come back into hiser life, then maybe the cemetery she had never dared to enter didn't really hold her brother's remains. After all, maybe he'd just put his tags around another soldier's neck to make them think he was dead.

Maybe one day he would ring her doorbell. Or even a letter. Or maybe she would run into him at an airport or in a big city. Maybe he was just holed up in the war, sad, alone with a bunch of veterans.

If she could find a person she had known seven years earlier on the other side of the world, then anything was possible.

So for several months now she had been living in denial. Until that moment at the cemetery.