The Five Stages, or

“How Grief is Like Writing”

My earliest memory is of the last time I saw my grandfather. I was four, there was a hospital

tray table drawn up to a bed and he was cutting an orange for us to share. I don’t know if

the memory is real, but it is the first I have.

“The Five Stages of Grief” is a moniker for the common emotions exhibited by dying

patients throughout their illnesses. The term dances through the media. TV series like

Scrubs and House dedicate episodes to its explanation. It plays as backdrop to movies like

P.S: I love you. Even literature is not safe from its grasp, with fantasy heroes from Harry

Potter to Batman running the gamut their entire fictional lives.

When Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote her treatises On Death and Dying in 1969, did she

know the culmination of her work with terminally-ill patients would shift the consideration

of death’s effects from patients to those left behind? Likely not. The dying are not to be

shied away from: acknowledge their humanity, consider their grief, include their families in

the process; this was Kübler-Ross’ intent. 1 But as she observed, at death “the dying

patient’s problems come to an end” 2, but for those still alive, their grief goes on.

There are five things I know to be true about grief; the same five things I know to be

true about writing.

1
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying (London: Tavistock Publications, 1978), xi, 19, 139
2
Ibid, 142
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 One.

Knowing someone is facing imminent death is like waiting to pass through writer’s block for

a flood of words; the flood never comes, the aftermath is static.

Amongst the stages of grief, “denial” is the first. Denial functions as a buffer to

unexpected news, it allows people to collect themselves; Kübler-Ross considers it a healthy

way of dealing with uncomfortable and painful situations.3

If “denial” means refusing to accept the truth as fact, what is the word for accepting

a truth but wishing it to be false? In a hospital room seventeen-years removed from my first

memory, I question this. I think about it as my sister asks how long my parents knew, asks

what stage it is in, asks if they are wrong as if asking with all the hurt in her voice will

somehow make our father’s cancer go away.

What is the word for not being able to write about something because it is true?

Hank Green is a pretty good writer; he says so in his video to his novelist brother,

John. An entrepreneur by day, a famous vlogger by night, Hank proclaims he writes his best

when not doing what others consider writing. “I mostly strive to … communicate

complicated things as simply as possible … But sometimes there are just things that can’t be

3
Ibid, 35
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said that way, which often leaves me unable to communicate effectively the things I feel are

most important.”4

Hank is talking about grief. His dog has died, and perhaps some find this a lesser

grief, but then he speaks about how sad he is—“I’m sad in a weird way where I will forget

why I am sad while still being sad, and I will think, “Why am I so sad?”, and then I will

remember and feel guilty for having forgotten.”5 And it makes you wonder if forgetting why

you are sad is a type of denial, too.

A year ago I was in the throes of writing a story—like Hank, I considered myself a

good writer. It was a story where the character represented the author’s life, but at some

point the character found it too difficult to be the author, so stopped. The character found

their way to a bed and dropped into sleep in the middle of a page, half torn to bits by the

author who thought being sadistic was the best way to show readers what the character is

made of. They have been asleep for eleven months. Sometimes we are unable to

communicate that which is most important.

The story is about the death of the author’s father, though it was meant to be

backdrop to a fantastical world where unforeseen disaster was going to pull the character

out of a post-mortem stupor; every griever needs their heroic mission. But the author

became too focused on life before loss, never letting the character remember their

upcoming sadness. Remembering why you are sad is more difficult than having been sad. So

the author denies the character movement.

4
Hank Green, “Thanks, Lemon”, YouTube video, 3:50. Posted by “Vlogbrothers”, February 19, 2016,
https://youtu.be/M15jiWBwa5w
5
Ibid
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The character’s world is a static cage of wordlessness.

Two.

Anger is the fuel to good writing; as it fuels those unable to stop their loved ones from dying.

Kübler-Ross reminds us that denial cannot be maintained forever, and once it gives

way it is replaced by anger. “Rage, envy, resentment … Just as the patient goes through a

stage of anger, the immediate family will experience the same emotional reaction.”6

I was twenty-one when I discovered my dad had stage-four cancer; a whole year

after my parents found out. An oncologist had “blabbed” to a room full of visitors, creating

clarity to a year’s worth of doctors’ visits and hospital stays. My dad: too proud to give

others worry, too proud not to hand down his anger.

“There is a fury to Terry Pratchett’s writing,” Neil Gaiman writes about his friend’s

deterioration from Alzheimer’s, “And that anger, it seems to me, is about Terry’s underlying

sense of what is fair and what is not … Or to put it another way, anger is the engine that

drives him, but it is the greatness of spirit that deploys that anger on the side of the

angels.”7

6
Kübler-Ross, On Death, 43, 149
7
Neil Gaiman, “Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry.” The Guardian, last modified September 25, 2014,
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman
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 Everything I know of anger, I learnt from my father. He taught me to ball a fist, to

make my voice threatening without loudness, how to misuse and misplace it. He never

taught me to harness it, to make it work for me.

The character in my story is anger. The whole story is about anger, but neither the

character nor the author is certain of this yet. They have both spent many days trying to

build their lives away from the ones expected of them, still unsure of their selves when the

news hit. When someone you love dies, the image you have of yourself can no longer exist.

But how do you find a new image when all you have been left with is anger?

People in fictional media always seem angry about death. They are angry at the

world, angry at their loved one for dying, angry at the forces that took their love away.

Harry Potter rages curses at Bellatrix Lestrange for the murder of his godfather; Viggo

Mortensen breaks his toes attempting to portray Aragon’s fury over Merry and Pippin’s

“death” by orcs; Hiro Hamada programs the benevolent robot Baymax to kill upon

discovering his brother died in vain. They are angry at themselves: for not realising or being

able to change things, for not becoming someone who can support those around them,

angry about being angry.

Anger is a gut-churning red-heat; when you know it long enough you can stop from

misusing it. You can swallow it into yourself, letting it burn away your insides. Or you can

press it down; mould it into coal good for use. Good for pressuring into diamonds. Just as

Terry Pratchett was said to have done; just as Neil Gaiman wrote of him: “I rage at the

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imminent loss of my friend. And I think, “What would Terry do with this anger?” Then I pick

up my pen, and I start to write.”8

To keep moving after losing a loved one is to allow that anger to propel you.

Three.

In writing, as with watching death, the only way out is through.

Bargaining is the natural succession to those unable to move. Bargaining is an

attempt to postpone, Kübler-Ross warns, it includes implicit promise of not asking for more

once postponement is granted. Promises, she says, may be associated with quiet guilt.9

When I was eight, I learnt that a “sunburnt country”10 was one where fires reigned

supreme. My never-remembered night-terrors transformed to nightmares, as I bargained

for death that was not just real but also horrific.

Bargaining is a strange expression that occurs in representations of pending death.

People take their anger and plead for a person to pull through. They offer penitence and

goodwill, their souls as price. In real life, when facts are undeniable, the bargaining is the

kind to do with anticipation; hope for the easiest of deaths.

8
Gaiman, “Terry Pratchett”
9
Kübler-Ross, On Death, 74
10
Dorothea Mackellar, “My Country”, Official Dorothea Mackellar Website, 9,
http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm
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 The only bargain I made after learning the truth of my father’s sickness was the

bargain I would see him before he died. It was October when we found out, and I was set to

leave in a few weeks to be away for a few months. When I stepped on the plane I knew he

had till March. I would be back by then; it would be okay.

I was halfway across the world when I learnt he would be lucky to make it to

Christmas. At a friend’s place in Texas, beating my phone into redialling as my family dodged

my calls. When my sister finally answered I asked if I should come back; she did not know.

When I asked if she wanted me back, the plea shook her voice.

My story character does not bargain; they know there is no stopping what will

happen. Unlike the author, the character carries on without worry of life expectancy. The

character does not need to wait by their father’s bedside; they do not need to spend their

days wondering when they will get the phone call. They know there will be time afterwards,

time to feel all that needs to be felt. But for now the character just bargains on hope. Hope,

because the author has been here already.

Daniel José Older tweets that, “writing can feel like Orpheus leaving hell, if you stop

and look back it all turns to dust.”11 What he means is to keep going forward, keep on with

the understanding that the best way out is always through.12

The character understands this better than the author. Perhaps I left the character

sleeping out of kindness; kindness of knowing what comes next. Somehow trying to write

11
Daniel José Older, Twitter post, December 9, 2015, 1:32PM,
https://twitter.com/djolder/status/674416386081427456
12
Robert Frost, “A Servant to Servants”, Bartleby, 56, http://www.bartleby.com/118/9.html
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the events of the past became as trying to render them from dust; a tedious process where

the want to make a beautiful image left nothing but mud. There is no bargaining the way

out of writer’s block. There is no bargain that will save you from death.

Events come and pass by their own accord.

Four.

Grief is like the creative race: it feels so much easier to stay unmoving than risk failure.

Only those who have been able to work through their anguish and anxieties are able

to achieve the stage of depression.13 Too often the initial reaction to depression is to

encourage the person to look at the bright side of life, but Kübler-Ross explains the more

grief can be expressed before death, the less unbearable it becomes afterwards.14 The

depression in grief is first reactive by sadness and guilt, and then preparatory for

separation.15

Depression comes when stoicism is replaced with a sense of great loss. My clearest

experience of depression before my father’s death was admitting to him I did not want him

to die; my clearest experience of depression after is the inability to refer to him as anything

less impersonal than “father”. Depression exhausts inexhaustible words.

13
Kübler-Ross, On Death, 78
14
Ibid, 149-150
15
Ibid, 76
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 Jake Roper is an internet creator. He discusses science fiction as it fits into science

fact, but his latest video is about not making a video. Jake says video creation is a process,

and when it falls apart he wonders, “How do I do this? Why do I do this? Does the story I’m

trying to tell need to be told this way?”16 For Jake, when the creation process falls apart it

leads to a black hole of perceived failure.

The problem of the static in writer’s block comes from an overestimation of

continual failure. For six months after my father passed I locked myself in my room. I knew

little of the world outside my house; scraped a pass for a university class; almost failed a

practical teaching block the next semester, but withdrew on bereavement grounds. Failure

seemed as good a name as any for me. It was a year and six months before I would attempt

to write again.

I kept my creative work light; afraid a heavy tide would pull me away from the

warmth of the shallows. For a year I kept up the game, there was nothing but creative flow

beneath my iceberg. I changed degrees, pursued a career that resonated with me. I was

writing again. But my life was still seeped in static. I knew then that if I did not write about

my experience, I would never move forward.

But the character is stuck at a precipice, and somewhere I hear Jake Roper still

talking: “There’s a voice screaming inside your head that’s trapped in there and you just

want to let it out … And then you take a breath … it hits you: there is more to do. These

16
Jake Roper, “A Video About Not Making A Video”, YouTube Video, 5:39. Posted by “Vsauce3”, October 6,
2017, https://youtu.be/qGgIC1GkBCw
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perceived failures don’t define you. It’s only when you decide that you’re a failure that you

have failed. So you get up … There is no finish line in this race.”17

Five.

“Acceptance should not be mistaken for a happy stage,” Kübler-Ross explains.18 It is

as if the pain has gone, the struggle is over and there is no more anger or depression.19

When my grandmother passed away a year-and-a-half-to-the-day after my father, I

did not find it so hard to accept. She had lived over seventy years; years of medication,

transplants and hospital rooms. Not only sickrooms for her cancer, but rooms which

delivered the lives of her family; the same family that watched her final breaths together. I

sometimes wonder if watching my father’s final moment would make acceptance easier,

but just like the scotch at his funeral I choke on my own inabilities.

Kübler-Ross’ treatises was ground-breaking in encouraging others not to shy away

from the critically-ill, but three decades after On Death and Dying she published an apology

to the misunderstandings it created. Too many people attempted to tuck messy emotions

into neat packages, but Kübler-Ross wanted it known there is not a typical response to loss,

as there is no typical loss.20 Just like the process of writing, grief has no linear timeline. Not

everyone goes through all the stages.21

17
Roper, “A Video About Not Making A Video”
18
Kübler-Ross, On Death, 100
19
Kübler-Ross, On Death, 99
20
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler. On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the
Five Stages of Loss (New York: Scribner, 2014), 7
21
Kübler-Ross and Kessler, On Grief, 7
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 For too long I have tried in desperation to find way through a story where my

character was wont to stand still. I believed there was mercy in preventing what I knew was

to come. I considered my inability to continue writing the work as a failure; one I would not

be able to overcome. So I turned away, began writing this piece. Just like Hank and Terry

and Daniel and Jake, I know the only way to surmount the challenge is to keep getting up

and moving forward. Until the day the static becomes a river, and the ant-hill of writer’s

block is washed over.

Anne Lamott has 12 truths she learnt from life and writing. The last truth is about

death, about how it is so hard to bear when those you cannot live without die. “You’ll never

get over these losses,” she says, “and no matter what the culture says, you’re not supposed

to … the person will live again fully in your heart if you don’t seal it off.”22

The way to acceptance is through writing.

22
Annie Lamott, “12 Truths I learned from life and writing.” Ted Talk video, 15:55, April, 2017,
https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_lamott_12_truths_i_learned_from_life_and_writing
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References

Frost, Robert. “A Servant to Servants”, Bartleby, 56.

<http://www.bartleby.com/118/9.html>

Gaiman, Neil. “Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry.” The Guardian. September 25, 2014.
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-
neil-gaiman>

Green, Hank. “Thanks, Lemon”. YouTube video, 3:50. Posted by “Vlogbrothers”, February
19, 2016, <https://youtu.be/M15jiWBwa5w>

Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. London: Tavistock Publications Limited, 1978.

Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth, and David Kessler. On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of
Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. New York: Scribner, 2014.

Lamott, Anne. “12 Truths I learned from life and writing”. TED Talk video, 15:55, April, 2017.
<https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_lamott_12_truths_i_learned_from_life_and_writ
ing>

Mackellar, Dorothea. “My Country”, Official Dorothea Mackellar Website, 9-16.

<http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm>

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Older, Daniel José, Twitter post, December 9, 2015, 1:32PM,
<https://twitter.com/djolder/status/674416386081427456>

Roper, Jake. “A Video About Not Making A Video”. YouTube video, 5:39. Posted by
“Vsauce3”, October 6, 2017, <https://youtu.be/qGgIC1GkBCw>

Vonnegut, Kurt. Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction. New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1999.

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