Reason to Grieve

   The five stages of grief, according to the Kubler-Ross model describe a series of emotions experienced by terminally-ill people prior to death.  This concept was first introduced by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist in 1969 in her book, “On Death and Dying.”  According to Kubler-Ross, the five stages of grief are: Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining, and finally, Acceptance.
 
   As we look around our country today and see how things have changed so drastically in such a short amount of time, I believe many people are in the midst, right now, of one of those five stages.  It’s become obvious to many that things will most likely never be the same as they were before our government took such drastic measures to close the nation down under the guise of controlling or containing the coronavirus.
 
   At first there was Denial as the government ordered all “non-essential” businesses and workers to close their doors and everyone to self-quarantine in their homes... (“this couldn’t possibly be happening here in America — perhaps in some third-world country, but certainly not here in the land of the free,” we said).  But not knowing all the facts, we gave our governmental and health leaders the benefit of a doubt.  After all, two weeks ...