Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

These are the stages of the Kübler-Ross model (a.k.a the Grief Cycle), in which I really am intrigued by the extent of this cycle’s exclusivity towards the variable of a loss and the qualities which define it.  A Loss, in one of its definitions most simplest forms, is the fact or process of losing something or someone. However to be at a loss for someone or something is also a true occurrence for people. This sense of being at a loss could be defined by the state or feeling of grief when deprived of someone or something of value. I noticed that both of these definitions do not limit themselves to the experience of death, which leads me to ponder over my own experience with that of the Grief Cycle, and whether or not it has, or will ever come to a close.

The Kübler-Ross model, within it’s five stages, suggests a type of emotional conclusion to the experience we have while undergoing the process of mourning — Acceptance. However, from recent personal experience, I have seen these particular stages reappear from where it once went away, specifically within the following months of my grandfather’s death. In one way or another these stages are triggered by unrelated occurrences, for example, the parting of a close friend visiting me on the weekend, who’s departure left me with a sense of loneliness to which I immediately associated with that same feeling I had four months earlier (during the funeral). The weeks leading up to this departure past by as usual, but in the act of saying goodbye to my friend and returning to my dark and empty room, I had somehow been thrown back into the emotional state of depression I experienced when returning from my final goodbye to my good ol’ abuelo. My mother (the daughter of the deceased) had a similar reaction when seeing an old man waiting for the bus stop, just as her own elderly father had done so frequently before. Both her and I had thought the grief was over, yet we kept coming across some sort of reminder to the emotional pain we had experienced; reminders which were often unrelated in its immediate nature.

These experiences occur without prediction, but by no means are they hindering to everyday life. We do not suffer continuously, nor was the event enough to establish a disorder such as PTSD, but these moments in which we remember our troubles brings about an anxiety for when the next episode will occur, or worse, an episode which perpetuates an overall lifetime’s worth of sorrow. These low points of life occur for the majority of people, and they cause the scars which form our own personal identity. The experience of all this sadness can be quite disheartening, but my own mind is soothed when remembering that the feeling of sadness is only one of many facts of life which contribute to the human experience. Life is not ill-fated, it is a large potential. Optimism returns upon the acknowledgments of these thoughts – such as those charmingly expressed within the video below.

We all experience low points; You, me, Marcel and Butters (the name of the cartoon characters in the video above). We also all long for happiness. Often in our own search for lost time it is easy to return to sorrowful moments, but do not forget to return to those moments of bliss as well.