The Sixth Stage of Grief
Did you know that a sixth stage has been added to the five stages of grief? You may have heard about the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. This work was explained in a book written by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler. Unfortunately, Kubler-Ross has passed away but David Kessler wanted to add a sixth stage to the grief stages after experiencing the loss of his son. The sixth stage is Finding Meaning. This hit me like a ton of bricks. Yes!!!! This is exactly what I had experienced!
The stages aren’t meant to be experienced in a linear fashion, but rather you work through the different stages at different times. I think when I heard the fifth stage was acceptance, ironically, I didn't want to accept that. I didn’t really think that once I accepted my pain and loss that that was the end, that I’d just go on with my life and everything would be better. For me, I needed to find meaning in the loss and the pain. What Kessler makes very clear is that this does not mean you find meaning in their death, but rather you find meaning in their life.
In my case there wasn’t a life but there was a dream and a vision of a life. When I say I wanted to find meaning, I didn’t want to say that I had found the “point” or had figured out why I was “supposed” to go through the pain, because I don’t think there is a reason why we go through pain and loss. I don’t think when someone loses a loved one that there is a reason. But rather, you can find meaning in what they brought to your life and how you can live your life in honor of them. And honestly, that’s exactly how I feel with my miscarriages. I didn’t want to go through such pain and loss and just move on and accept it. I wanted to find meaning. I wanted to use the pain and honor the lives of the six babies that I never got to hold. For me, that meant making sure that no one else experienced the pain alone. That when someone is walking through the pain, they know that there are women who have walked that road before and have cleared the path, and want to stand by you and walk through it with you.
I had been listening to an interview by David Kessler, the co-author of “On Grief and Grieving” and the author of “Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief” when an “AHA” moment struck me. Kessler was being interviewed about grief and loss and was discussing the interviewer’s loss. Before continuing the conversation, Kessler asked the interviewer the name of the person that had passed away. He explained that he did this because it is so important to name the person instead of just referring to him or her as a loss. This is when it hit me.
It Didn’t Have a Name
It hit me like a ton of bricks.
It was one of those “AHA” moments that immediately made me cry.
This is the difference between the loss of a human that had lived a life and the loss of a baby that had never been born. There wasn’t a name. My six losses never had a name or a face. Because there wasn’t a name, other people had not made a connection to this life. And because other people had not formed that connection, they tended to have adverse reactions and responses to the pain of a miscarriage. This gave people the permission to say things like, “Well, it wasn’t meant to be”, or, “Be grateful for what you have”, or, “Just try again”. People don’t say those things to someone after a death. No one says at a funeral, “Well, it just wasn’t meant to be”. I knew this, I’ve known it for 5 years. I knew that people responded weirdly to miscarriages, but I couldn’t figure out why.
The life, the baby, didn’t have a name. We hadn’t put that significance on the life yet. We hadn’t experienced or created memories yet. Except we had, hadn’t we? For those that have been through the pain, you know this to be true. You know that you had named it, you had made memories with it. Maybe those weren’t official names, but you had immediately started thinking of names, you had immediately put an identity on the life. And maybe you hadn’t experienced memories with the baby, but you had imagined a life and the memories you would make together. You had the memory of learning you were pregnant. You had the memory of your body changing from a life growing in you, but you didn’t have the memories created once the life was born. To others, there wasn’t a name. Those memories weren’t imagined by anyone else. So, they say things like, “It wasn’t meant to be”, or, “Just try again”. These people don’t realize the pain they are inflicting with their words; they really are just trying to be supportive and helpful, but they didn’t see the imagined life that we saw.
Where do we go with this information? We learn, we grow, and we teach. If you know someone who is going through a miscarriage or has been through a miscarriage (because that loss and pain is never gone), talk to them. Keep in mind that this baby DID have a name. I think about some of my friends who made me feel heard when going through my miscarriages, and the one thing they had in common was that they acknowledged that they didn’t know what to say but that they were so sorry for the pain I was in and were there to listen. Please DO NOT discount their pain because it is a pain you do not understand. That life and baby had a name in their momma’s heart.
