the stages of letting go

 ~ forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it (Mark Twain)

When it comes to loss or terminal illness, we say that acceptance happens gradually, in stages known as "grief". The stages we go through, however, are not just steps we simply go down. They are an uphill battle to let go of something cherished, a process far more arduous than what is implied in the somewhat placid emotion "grief" which, true to its etymologcal orgin (gravitas), is thick with a sorrow evoking images of weeping and wailing clothed in the heavy black garments of wet renunciation.

Loss, on the other hand, triggers anything but a passive response from the loser. It sparks an agitated wrestling against reality, a complex process that is totally counter-intuitive to human agency culminating in the bittersweet acquiescence to an undesired fate.

That is letting go.

The first stage is denial: No. This is not happening and I will have nothing of it!

The second stage is protest: I can not an will not let this happen. I am going to fight all the way. (This stage is the most painful stage, in my opinion, and it can go on a long time in a heroic but futile struggle for control. It is also the most beautifully human stage because we cannot help but resist what removes personal agency).

The third stage is bargaining: Maybe I can still alter my fate in some way. (This phase is a kind of rebound of denial in a last bid for hope against all hope by a thinly veiled despondency).

The fourth is sadness: I am powerless over this! I am caving under it and all I can do is weep...

And the last stage (if one ever arrives at it, because it is so antithetical to being human) is acceptance: I relinquish control and let go.

However, just as "grief" does not adequately convey our real response to loss, so does "acceptance" inadequately convey the dignified state at which a person arrives at the end of these stages when they end well. One does not "accept" loss. Rather, one forgives it, like a debt, and moves on in a state of grace, released.