Stages of Grief and Wolterstorff's Narrative in "Lament for a Son"

Stages of Grief Paper
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Introduction
Grief is a response that someone faces after they lose a close person to death. It is a process entailing several stages that someone undergoes as they confront the idea of loss until the point that they accept the reality. Wolterstorff`s reflections gives a clear indication of grief as a process. He narrates how he dealt with the process of losing his son Eric, and with this he gives a voice to the mourners. Throughout the book “Lament for a Son,” it is very clear that grief is something that people deals with at some point in their lives, and religion has a huge role to play in giving hope to the grieving.
Wolterstorff’s Reflections in Lament for a Son
Wolterstorff mourns a lot since he believes that children are the future, and parents should never have to bury their children. It should be the other way round, where children bury their parents (Wolterstorff, 1987). His greatest lamentation was that he never got the chance to say Goodbye. This is why he said that it would have been easier if Eric would have fell ill instead, because with this, he could have said goodbye (Wolterstorff, 1987). He realised that each death is unique and it hurts. Wolterstorff claims himself through realising resurrection. He realised that there is eternal life and one day he will be reunited by his son. Eric`s death made Wolterstorff feel like he is in a battlefield and he has lost one of his soldiers and this pains his soul. He believed that forgetting his son`s death would do very little to honor him and he also realised that people cannot be of help during grief since everyone grieves differently (Wolterstorff, 1987).
Kubler- Ross` five stages of grief as addressed in the Lament of a Son
Denial
Denial is the first stage of grief experienced by the bereaved`s inability to accept that a loss has indeed occurred due to death. They see the news as unreal or a dream and that things will go back to normal afterwards. In the Lament for a Son, Wolterstorff thinks about what would have happened if Eric would not have climbed that mountain. This shows the denial stage of grief (Patricelli, 2016).
Anger
As the second stage of grief, the bereaved accepts the reality that they have lost someone to death and then, they now tend to be angry at the dead, with themselves, with other objects and people (Patricelli, 2016). Wolterstorff was angry at Eric, and he questioned why he climbed that mountain alone, in the first place. Additionally, he was angry at himself for not being able to tell Eric goodbye (Wolterstorff, 1987)
Bargaining
Bargaining forms the third stage of grief and it is where the “What if?” questions arises (Patricelli, 2016). This is clearly seen in Wolterstorff`s thinking that probably his son`s death would have been better if he died of a disease (Wolterstorff, 1987).
Depression
Depressions occurs after the bereaved realises that bargaining and anger are not doing anything to keep them away from being sad of the loss of their loved ones. T...