Week 3: Kubler-Ross Is Full Of Crap

Ok, that’s not entirely true. Kubler-Ross did a lot of great things for the understanding of grief, for example, making it part of the conversation in a way that was understandable to most people. For those of you who don’t know who Kubler-Ross is, a quick introduction: she was a psychiatrist, who in 1969, published a book based on the interviews of hundreds of people titled “On Death And Dying.” See, grief has only been a talked-about part of human psyche for a few decades, and this is largely – if not solely – due to the work of Kubler-Ross. In the book, she introduces the idea of the Stages of Grief (see chart below), and uses them as a way to understand what emotional cycle people experience when they suffer a loss. There is a lot of really good information in what she brings forth, but where she went terribly wrong, was making the stages of grief a linear concept. Even the idea that someone might slip back into the previous stage momentarily prior to moving forward, is a misconception. But it’s what we know. It’s what we understand. It’s easy to understand….unfortunately, grief and emotion are none of those things – there is nothing linear about us.

The week three meeting of the Parent’s Group centered on learning about the grief process. It was the first meeting where we actually started to move in a direction of understanding, instead of the necessary but difficult introductions. Now, let it be known that the meetings are not a lecture or educational platform. Each one has an agenda and direction, but the conversation often moves in different directions depending on the needs of the group on any particular night. And just because the first two weeks are behind us, it doesn’t mean that so are the emotionally challenging moments – for those happen all throughout each and every meeting.

Also, the third week offered Ahna and I something very special: a chance to reunite for the first time since leaving the hospital with someone that was absolutely instrumental to us while we were there. Vanessa is a Chaplain in the hospital, and while we were very fortunate to receive the help and services of that entire department, Vanessa is one person that we connected with the most….one of many extraordinary people that walked with us. Vanessa was our ‘guest facilitator’ for the third week’s meeting, and it was an absolute pleasure to reconnect with her.

During the meeting, we were introduced to something that is an alternate understanding of the stages of grief called the Grief Wheel (see below). The simple design – the idea that it’s never ending, that it’s an alternate trajectory, that there are built-in understandings of slippage between all of the places, and that there is a before and after that are different – really connected with me in a way that the traditional models never have. I would make one modification to the drawing, and instead of it being two-dimensional, I would make it look more like a spiral where the ‘before loss’ and ‘after loss’ parts of life never intersect.

When we look at this, we recognize that there really isn’t a stage to this process. While we would probably associate pretty strongly with one particular part of this wheel, I would also offer that at any given moment on any given day, you could find us in any part of this circle. And even though we may generally be in one area, there are feelings/emotions/descriptions from each other part that we also deal with on a daily basis. I think that we are finding that as time is moving forward, with or without our permission, there are actually aspects of grieving that become harder and more influential. The holidays are upon us (group week seven discussion), and Liam’s birthday is only a few weeks away. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wheel starts spinning a lot faster in the near future.