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Stages of grief

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 13 2026

Stages of grief

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:

  1. Guilt and shame that I was so grateful he died (three weeks)
  2. Guilt and shame that I hated caregiving so much (three weeks)
  3. Deep sadness, wondering why I would want to keep living (a little longer than three weeks)
  4. Gratitude for 49 years of marriage, for the end of caregiving for Dave, for the friends and family members who have supported me so well, for moving through a crisis I have been expecting/dreading for more than a decade. With moments of sadness and feeling like this whole process is surreal.

As far as I can tell, my first and second stages of grief bear no resemblance to Kübler-Ross’s stages. My third stage seems like her depression stage. I do seem to be in an acceptance stage now, which I realize is tentative. I will undoubtedly experience a variety of emotions going forward.

Sadly, Kübler-Ross’s stages were adopted in the wider culture as proscriptive and sequential (everybody will go through these steps in order). She never intended them to be interpreted that way. She knew very well that several of these stages could be present at the same time, they don’t necessarily happen in order, and not everyone experiencing a loss goes through all of the five stages. Even though Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief have been misused and misunderstood, I want to highlight a few things I find useful about two of her stages.

1. Anger as a component of grief. For those who have not experienced a lot of grief, anger as a grief component might seem strange and inappropriate. If you love a person who is dying or has died, why would you feel anger? Kübler-Ross’s inclusion of anger in her stages has opened a door of understanding in many ways. At the very least, we can see a growing willingness to express anger at diseases and their effects, including cancer, dementia, and Parkinson’s. Since Dave experienced so much pain from cancer that had spread to his bones, I resonate with the “F*** Cancer” messages I see on T-shirts and elsewhere.

In one of my grief support groups, the grief support social worker who was leading the group prompted us to talk about times during the grief process when we felt more irritable than usual. Many participants chimed in with stories. That irritability is a subset of anger.

I have experienced almost no extra anger since Dave passed, but anger was a significant component of the caregiving experience for me. I loved Dave. I wanted to care for him. I (mostly) gladly cut back on several well-loved aspects of my life to care for him. But I am not a natural caregiver. I hated the feelings of inadequacy and impotence that I felt as a caregiver. I felt angry a lot, mostly at myself.

I wrote last week about anticipatory grief. My anger during the caregiving stage could be viewed as a component of my grief for what was happening and what would happen.

2. Depression as a component of grief. In the three-plus weeks when I felt really sad, I found myself thinking, “I’m finally feeling what I’m supposed to feel. That’s nice, but this hurts. I wonder how long this intense sadness will last.” Martin Seligman, in Learned Optimism, describes depression as sad feelings that seem:

  • personal — I caused these feelings
  • permanent — these feelings will never end
  • pervasive — my entire life is ruined

In my very sad weeks, I could see myself engaging in those three beliefs. From time to time in those weeks, I felt some degree of detachment as I watched those thoughts and feelings. I’ve been depressed before, and I’ve always found a path through. Intense sadness is common in grief, and I had moments of faint certainty that someday I would feel joy again. The knowledge and understanding I have about depression helped me navigate my very sad weeks.

Perhaps I’ll write in the future about Kübler-Ross’s stages of bargaining and denial. Perhaps readers will send me stories about the way they’ve seen those stages appear in grief.

I’ll repeat my major learning in these months of grief. The experience of grief is incredibly varied. My job as a griever is to experience what I feel and accept my feelings as my journey. Kübler-Ross does not dictate what grief should look like. We can learn from her research, but, wow, grief has so many more stages and variations than she named.

Jesus, through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, is with us in all of this. Early in his ministry, Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1, owning the words for himself. The Spirit of the Lord is upon him, Jesus says, and has anointed him

“To preach the gospel to the poor;
. . . to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind, 
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” (Luke 4:18, 19, NKJV)

Spirit of the Living God, thank you for anointing Jesus to heal the brokenhearted. Jesus, thank you for being with us to set us free from everything that oppresses us. Do your work in us, we pray. 

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Next week: More about my grief journey.  Illustration by Dave Baab: Rockaway Beach, California.

The new book of Dave’s watercolors is here. You can buy cards, T-shirts, bags and other items with Dave’s watercolors here.

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