Manchaca UMC

Lesson 4: Grief comes in waves

Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote a ground breaking book in 1969 where she discussed her working theory on the five stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. It has become fashionable to attack her work - especially the sequential listing of the five stages. However, her student and colleague, David Kessler, rightly points out that her five stages were more descriptive than prescriptive. She considered them more a pattern than an exact map that grief must follow. She knew that grief is individual and cannot be reduced to five stages. Grief is not a linear experience. We must, therefore, embrace the messiness of grief. I have found Gerald Sittser’s idea of grief coming in waves to be a helpful metaphor.** At first, the waves come with more frequency and intensity. As we do the work of attending to our grief, the waves become less frequent and less intense over time.

However, it is not unusual for a rogue wave of grief to hit us. One Thursday morning several years ago I was as usual at a library working on Sunday’s sermon. Then I received an email from a college girlfriend of my older brother. She had read of his sudden unexpected death in the college alumni magazine. She had googled my contact information to ask me some questions about his life after college. Later that morning she sent me pictures of my brother with her in in the living room of our house from 1969! I thought that I was coping with his death pretty well until her email. Wham! The wave hit me and knocked me out for the next two days. I couldn’t concentrate or get anything done. Kessler calls those attacks “grief bursts.” Out of nowhere an event will trigger a deep sense of loss and pain in our life.

I do have two pieces of good news. First of all, we will get up from the rogue wave attack. We will laugh and live again soon. It may be a long time before a wave of similar strength hits again. Secondly, Kessler’s research indicates that people will experience “love bursts” as well. Just as rogue waves will hit us out of nowhere, so we will have experiences of positive emotional feelings, comfort and love around the life and loss of our loved one. My sense is that when the wave of pain hits us, we need to struggle and get back on our feet so that when the wave of love and peace hits, we are able to catch it and ride it as far as it can take us.

Grief can be a wild ride, but I believe that the good waves will one day outnumber the bad.

~David

** Gerald Sittser, A Grace Disguised