According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, when we're dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all go through five distinct stages of grief.
We go into denial because the loss is so unthinkable. We become angry with everyone, angry with survivors, angry with ourselves.
Then we bargain. We beg. We plead. We offer everything we have, we offer our souls in exchange for just one day. When the bargaining has failed and the anger is too hard to maintain, we fall into depression, despair, until finally we have to accept that we've done everything we can.
We let go and move into acceptance. Every one of those five are true and they are all tough to face. But, the most hardest thing to face is acceptance. To let go of the grief, the sorrow, and the sadness we feel. We have to move on.
Most people say that grief is loss. Which is true. I say that grief is denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Grief isn't just one emotion. It's five but not at the same time. It's one after the other. The worst part of grief is once you've learned to accept it, it starts all over again. No matter how hard you try to ignore it. To push it. To forget it. It will always come crawling back. It's like those cartoons when the character has a cloudy rainy storm above his head. That's how feeling grief is like. It won't go away, until you've learned to accept it. Once you've learned to accept it, the cloudy rainy storm will no longer be above your head. It will be a bright and sunny yellow sun.
