I lost my grandma (my cousins, siblings, and I call her Gram or Gran) on April 28, 2015. It was a huge loss at what seemed like the worst time there could be. It happened on the last full week of the spring 2015 semester at my college and thoughts of finals (plus summer classes) was overbearing at this time. I remember that even though I managed to finish off the spring semester, I was contemplating on continuing to take summer classes. I think I was behaving this way because it was such a huge loss and I never really got to know my other grandparents that well.

A week or two after the burial, my family got a letter in the mail from our church talking about the five stages of grief. I only got a quick glimpse of the letter, but never saw it again. All hope was not lost as it took a quick Google search of “five stages of grief” to lead me to a website that thoroughly described each of the five stages. Reading this comforted me as I could connect the emotions I was feeling when I first found out to what the descriptions described. The five stages of grief are:

Denial

Denial is the stage when we feel shock and overwhelmed to the point when we cannot think of the tasks that we have to complete. I was on the bus at the very moment I found out, and I was denying that it was happening. I found out, and wanted to do nothing more than be with my family. Nothing mattered when I first found out, not even the last group presentation that I was supposed to do for a class that morning and I couldn’t go.

Anger

Anger is a common emotion to deal with everyday. After some time, we can find ourself calming down, but it is harder to calm down when anger first happens. I was angry at myself first because I was preparing to do a presentation for a class the next day, which I ended up not going, when I really could have spent some time to visit Gram on her last night alive. I was angry the afternoon after I found out what happened that a bus came far too early, even when my last class of the day was canceled. I was also angry at a lot of things, but some were larger than what I could handle.

Bargaining

Bargaining is a little tricky to understand at first, but it is basically begging to be sure that something wouldn’t be lost again. I did bargain to want to spend more time with Gram at first. I was feeling really upset and had some regrets at the time, but then realized that I could really spend more time with my family. That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned after Gram’s death; the lesson is to never take family for granted, and this is true because you don’t realize how much you’ve had until it’s gone.

Depression

Depression is just as common as anger; it is the sadness that comes with the loss. I feel that this stage of grief takes over/take a much longer time. Depression can occur on a daily basis, but some days are worse than others. Depression can hit you and come out of nowhere at the point when you can’t really do anything, but cry. There have definitely been some days when I feel too depressed and I often tend to think about Gram/how much it would be great if I could see her again. Nowadays, I do wish I could have been able to have much more memories with her and I will never have that chance now.

Acceptance

This is the stage when we all accept the a loved one is truly and physically gone. It takes a number of months to get to this point, to accept that we will have to understand that it happened. I thought I was at the stage of acceptance in August, but then I haven’t had gone through the first of holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) and birthdays without Gram. Now that all of the holidays and all birthdays have passed, I am accepting it now that it is what it is. There is still that emptiness thinking about my college graduation in December/next year in May, but I know that Gram will be looking down on me as I accomplish things without her physically being there.