Editorial

Front Page - Friday, February 12, 2010

I Swear...

Good grief

Vic Fleming

Thanks to all who called and wrote to say that you appreciated the memorial piece printed last month.
I wrote that piece as a part of my grieving process over losing my sister. Grief is a part of life. And the older we get, the more we get to experience it first hand.
As many in my generation have come to learn, from the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and others, grief can predictably manifest itself in five stages of varying length and intensity:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
No, they do not necessarily occur in this order. And no, they don’t necessarily have clearly delineated boundaries. However, the logic of this order is such that, in dealing with ordinary relationships, one might prepare oneself for the stages of grief to come at them in this sequence.
Denial: The denial phase is typified by a tendency to utter words such as “I cannot believe this. This is not happening.”
Denial tends to be temporary. It will usually give way to a heightened awareness of the absolute reality of the situation.
Anger: In this phase, one is inclined to cry out, “Why us?! Who’s to blame for this?!”
The anger phase tends to displace the denial phase. They don’t co-exist well. Intense anger can be an impediment to progress in just about any situation. Grieving is no different. Being mad at people and situations solves little. A sense that the anger is misplaced will inevitably set in.
Bargaining: The third stage of grief typically brings in the notion that a delay of a worst case scenario can somehow be worked out—with the powers that be, religious or otherwise.
Depression: This phase is at the doorstep of the inevitable last stage of acceptance. “I’m sad, why bother?” is the mantra of the depression stage of grief.
During the fourth stage, the grieving person comes to understand the certainty of the situation. It is an important time to process feelings that cannot be ignored. This may mean tears. It may mean revisiting phases one through three. It may mean spending time alone. It may mean emotional carnival rides.
Acceptance: The fifth phase (“It’s going to be all right”) is marked by preparing oneself to move on. This phase can bring peace and understanding. It is, or can be, the end of what has been a struggle.
My sister had been treated for several years for a serious disease. Even when she was in remission, it was not uncommon for an infection of some sort to bring on a brief hospital stay, after which things would get back to something of an even keel.
Something akin to this happened on November 5. My sister was admitted to the hospital for observation and tests. Within a couple of days, she lapsed into a coma. All efforts to get an accurate diagnosis of her “new” condition failed.
Twelve or so days into what would be a 42-day process, I sensed that she was dying. My denial phase had lasted 10 days. I fast-forwarded to stage 5, but dropped back into two through 4 as necessary to process my feelings.
Other family members were involved, and it was easy to ride their coattails in stages two through four while trying to bridge the gap for them to phase five. I began to write the item about her that was printed last month the night of her death. I finished it about a month later.
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at judgevic@comcast.net.

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