Grief is a type of emotional response to loss. It’s caused by having a strong affection for someone living. I am in the process of experiencing grief myself. Sometimes people think that grief will go away eventually, but that is simply not true. There are times you feel sad and emotional, but there are other times you feel happy and calm.

What are the 5 stages of grief?

 The 5 stages of the grieving process are: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. These stages don’t often go in order and it could take weeks or months to go from 1 stage to the other. The truth is that everyone grieves differently, and that’s okay.

The first stage is Called denial. This is what happens after you hear someone has died. You may not feel anything and that is quite alright. I felt that way when my Grandpa Adolphson passed. I knew that he had cancer and my family and I went to go see him at the Lake of the Ozark’s, I just thought we would have more time with him

The second stage is anger. I remember this stage very well. It was in the summer of 2016. I had just come back from a wonderful place called Camp Barnabas. While it was suppose to be a happy time for me, it quickly turned into a sad one. My mother had just told me that my cousin, who I was very close to was going to die. At the funeral, I was not myself. I was angry about her death. I didn’t know why God took her early. I mean, it wasn’t her time! She was only 18 and she still had a long life to go.

The third stage is depression. We all have probably gone through this stage eventually. When my cousin Miranda passed away, I think I went through this stage more than once. I didn’t want to do anything after her death because I was concerned that if I was out in public, I would start crying and I didn’t want others to see.

Bargaining is the fourth stage. In this stage, we will make deals with ourselves or if we are Christians, with God. We think we can take the pain away by doing things or telling ourselves we should have done something with the person while he or she was still alive. I believe this stage is the hardest to get over because we often regret something or play the “what if” game with ourselves. 

The fifth and final stage is acceptance. In this stage, we accept that the person is gone and we move on with our lives.

Grief is a complicated thing. If you are reading this and are feeling sad, you could go for a walk, exercise by doing Yoga, something distracting or just ask  for some hugs! I think people will understand what you are going through and offer to help. Sitting with your grief or listening to music is a great idea as well. We need to understand that even though we have lost our loved ones here on this earth, they are not completely gone from our lives, they are in our hearts. We will see them one day in a place called heaven!