By Markus Dennis
Finding meaning is vital to the pursuit of a life well-lived. Akin to no other experience, loss and the ending of almost anything can leave us at a bridge to nowhere. Where that trail ends another begins and we find this to be a potential source of impactful joy. Expressing loss well is a step toward betterment and healing, both individually and in the community.
In 1969 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages in her seminal work On Death and Dying. In 2019 David Kessler, who coauthored with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969 published a striking text with an important revelation, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. The previous five stages weren’t a stand-alone remedy but steps to another stage! A lot changed since 2019 and a lot remains the same. Similar but not the same, are the stages of those who grieve to those who’ve experienced a death or significant loss. The collective experiences of our journey through grief are still uniquely individual, painful, and personal.
The five stages before the sixth: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance were never intended to be tidy or tucked away from the raw experience of grief’s often brutal reality. These are stages with waypoints to individual steps forward more than all-encompassing, prescriptive categories.
If grief were a mountain, then how do we know when we’re near the summit’s peak? As the mountain climbing adage goes, if in any doubt keep climbing. “Getting to the summit is optional,” remarked Ed Viesturs “getting down is mandatory.” (from No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks).
Grief is powerful but visible and shared love is more powerful. Arriving at the summit of all six stages is optional but getting back down to a productive daily life is more mandatory.
“Your loss is not a test, a lesson, something to handle, a gift, or a blessing. Loss is simply what happens to you in life.” David Kessler also adds, “Meaning is what you make happen.” We will all be on this mountain-again and again-but journeying alongside another sets us apart and binds us together. The six story mountain of finding meaning through grief is before us, behind us, and ahead of us. We really do need each other not just to reach the summit but to get back down from it.
How can we help those we love to find meaning through their grief? By way of an answer from my journey: What happens on the grief trail needs to stay there in confidence, allow for time but don’t attribute healing powers to time, welcome re-sharing often, avoid shortcuts to the summit, be a hope peddler doling out optimism, purposefully listen to understand without distractions, and for the love of Riley, until a more meaningful grief appears, pray.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,’ Romans 15:13(a), so that you may overflow with hope by finding more meaning.
The Rev. Markus Dennis is pastor of Riley Friends Church in Greenfield. This weekly column is written by local clergy members.
