Grief to Acceptance

I've been following the series of Grey's Anatomy up until its 6th season now.
In its 6th season, finally the resident gank, and the rest of the Seattle Grace are losing Dr. George O'Malley.

They are all dealing with differend kind of grief.

I love the script, I like the lesson.

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According to Elizabeth Kubbler Ross, when we are dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all move through five distinct stages of grief.

We go into denial.
Because the loss is so unthinkable, we can't imagine it's true

We become angry with everyone.
Angry with survivors, angry with ourselves.

Then we bargain.
We beg, we plead, we offer everything we have, we offer up our souls in exchange for just one more day.

When the bargaining has failed and the anger is too hard to maintain, we fall into depression, despair, until finally we have to accept that we have done everything we can.

We let go.

We le go and move into acceptance.

In medical school, we have a hundred classes that teach us how to fight off death, and not one lesson in how to go on living.

The dictionary defines grief as, "keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss".

Sharp sorrow.

Painful regret.

As surgeons, as scientists, we're taught to learn from and rely on books, on definitions, on definitives.

But in life, strict definitions rarely apply.
In life, grief can look like a lot of things that bear little resemblance to sharp sorrow.

Grief maybe a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone.

It isn't just death we have to grieve.
It's life, it's loss, it's change.
And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad, the thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime.

That's how you stay alive.
When it hurts so much you can't breathe, that's how you survive.
By remembering that one day, somehow impossibly, it won't feel this way.
It won't hurt this much.

Grief comes in its own time for everyone, in its own way.
So the best we can do, the best anyone can do, is try for honesty.

The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief, is that you can't control it.
The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes.
And let it go when we can.

The very worst part is that the minute you think you're past it, it starts all over again, and always every time...

It takes your breath away.

There are five stages of grief.
They look different on all of us, but there are always five.

Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.

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If you're in a deep grief right now, enjoy the process of turning it into acceptance.

Nothing is eternal in this life, one minute you have it, the next minute you might lose it.

The point is to enjoy every moment given to you to the fullest, and when it has to go, just let it go.

Accept it.