Every death changes the lives of those close to the deceased person. The ability to change and adapt to changes around you is the key to accepting and dealing with death. As in the other aspects of our lives, the more we resist and fight against inevitable changes, the more pain we experience and the more unhappy we become.
In experiencing grief we may go through a full range of sometimes contradictory emotions such as denial, anger, sorrow, guilt and relief. We may fluctuate from feeling stable to being deeply depressed. Ultimately, we must arrive at acceptance, the last stage of the process. We know we have achieved this stage when we can see the life of our loved one as a fond memory instead of dwelling on the person’s death as a harsh reality. Only then can we go on living our own lives again. According to research, there are generally 10 stages in the grieving process: