Stages of Grief
Grand Canyon University: HLT-310V
May 3, 2015
Stages of Grief
We are all human and one day we will die. Before that happens, all of us at one point will experience grief from the death of a friend or loved one. Many people try to avoid the grief process at first as they are at such a loss. In her 1969 book On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross proposed the five stages of grief as 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression, and 5) Acceptance. There is no set timeline or absolute order of the 5 stages, each person will go through the five stages differently. This paper will discuss the five stages of grief applied to the account of Nicholas Wolterstorff son’s tragic death in the book Lament for a Son.
In the book Lament for a Son, Wolterstorff’s son is tragically killed in a mountain climbing accident at the age of 25. The book’s author is devastated by his son’s death and is feeling great grief over his death. “As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house; neither shall his place know him any more” (Job 7:9-10, King James Version.)
At first the author is in denial he can’t believe his son is dead, and that he is not going to be able to see him of talk to him again. The author then moves into the second stage of grief where there is anger over his son’s death, he wishes he or someone else was watching over his son while he was away in the mountains of Austria. The author then moves into the next stage of grieving which is bargaining. He prays to God that he may bargain with him to bring his son back. He logically claims Lord if you have the power to bring back your own son, Jesus Christ, from the grave. How come you can’t bring my son Eric back to me from death?
The author after some time moves into the fourth stage of grieving which is Depression. He goes through a long period of depression...