Grief's Deceit

I found this on the WSJ's "Best of the Web." It's worth repeating.

"Death was quick, but grief, I find, keeps going on and on and on and it affects me in strange ways.

I feel no denial. No anger. No bargaining. No depression. And this makes me wonder if I'll ever get to peace and acceptance. These five classic stages of grief, cited so authoritatively by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, aren't working for me.

Instead my grief is amorphous, deceitful, unpredictable. Sometimes it hides behind distractions; sometimes it covers my spirits like the pall on Mike's coffin, and sometimes it knocks me flat, particularly when I think of Mike's beloved wife, Max, and their little boys, Tom, 7, and Jack, 3, who must live their lives without him."

-- Marguerite Kelly, writing about the death of her son, Michael.