Home & Blog | Lynne Baab

Stages of grief

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 13 2026

I’m sure you’ve heard of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s groundbreaking 1969 work on the five stages of grief, often called the five stages of loss or the grief cycle. She argued that any of these emotions and thoughts can be present in grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

I wrote three weeks ago about my stages of grief since my beloved Dave’s passing four months ago. Here are my stages:

Guilt and shame that I was so grateful he died (three weeks) Guilt and shame that I hated caregiving so much (three weeks) Deep sadness, wondering why I would want to keep living (a little longer...

Read full article »

Grieving ahead of time

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 6 2026

My beloved husband Dave had permanent scarring on his lungs from pneumonia as a small child. As a result, every virus turned into bronchitis. He didn’t get viruses super often, but in the year that he was 68, he got bronchitis four times. On his 69th birthday, in 2015, he got a virus that turned into pneumonia. He never completely healed.

In his first three years of lung disease, Dave had three different diagnoses. The second one was scary, with a short life expectancy and a horrible drug for treatment. While he had that diagnosis, I had a lot of fear about the...

Read full article »

What I've learned from people's stories about grief

Lynne Baab • Thursday July 30 2026

I’m thinking back on an online grief group about five weeks after my husband Dave passed to the next life. For those five weeks, I was focused on tasks: the graveside service, the memorial service, the bank, the IRAs, distributing Dave’s art supplies to artist friends, and on and on. And, as I wrote last week, at the time of the group, I was mostly thinking about what a reluctant job I did as a caregiver. Other than that, I was a bit paralyzed. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my time after these seemingly endless tasks...

Read full article »

My grief journey thus far

Lynne Baab • Thursday July 23 2026

My beloved Dave passed through the doorway to the next life on April 9 of this year. I was so curious what my grief would look like. After all, I’ve written and taught about grief.

What happened in the first six weeks was quite unexpected.

I was so relieved when Dave’s life on earth ended. He was in so much pain from cancer that had spread to his spine and hip bones. He could have taken higher doses of the painkiller prescribed for him, but he hated the way he felt on those high doses. And he couldn’t paint when drugged to a...

Read full article »

<< Newer | Older >>