Stages of Grief
No two authorities agree on exactly which stages of grief widows must go through. Most agree that the number, type and severity of stages differ from widow to widow, depending on many individual factors. All agree that grief is a job that must be done before healing can occur.
Although it’s true that grief loosely follows a pattern, moving through progressive stages, erratic symptoms often appear without respect for those stages. In addition, there is no predictable timetable. One doesn’t get over grief in a specific amount of time, as one does the chicken pox or mumps. With time –and work– grief changes its nature and its intensity, becoming more tolerable and less frightening. Eventually one’s new life begins to play a more important role than grief itself.
Each widow’s grief is different, depending on her age, her financial resources, her personal independence, her spirituality, her family’s and friends’ support network, her emotional stability, her education and training, her cultural heritage. Another essential factor is the way her husband died and her presence or absence at the death. An 82-year-old woman who nursed her husband for three years surely will experience grief differently than a 30-year-old mother of three whose husband died of a sudden heart attack in bed beside her. Suicide, death by violence, auto accident, fire, terrorism or war all set a widow up for very different grief patterns than most of us can possibly know. None of us should judge another widow. Only she knows her own situation.
Ten Stages Most Widows Experience
Shock / Numbness
Confusion / Disorientation
Denial
Bargaining
Anger
Guilt
Depression
Cockiness
Anxiety
Acceptance