Jan. 2024 Book Review: On Grief & Grieving by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler

I’m starting this year with a personal book review.  It’s a book that I read for myself, and I wasn’t planning to use it for a book review, but I have been thinking a lot about it and after talking it out with Coach Cati the other day I decided that it might be a book that other’s need to know about as well. 

I was introduced to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross when I was in High School.  I had big dreams of a journalism career one day and I had the opportunity to attend a journalism camp at Mizzou the summer between my junior and senior year.  I ended up writing a series of articles that when I think back on it, were about grief, but I used Kubler-Ross’ book On Death and Dying as my main research piece.  On Death and Dying was published in 1969. At the time it was controversial and groundbreaking because before Kubler-Ross’ work no one was really talking about death and honestly 55 years later we still don’t really know how to talk about death or grieving.  It was in this book that Kubler-Ross introduced the 5 stages of death that include, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  Over 30 years later Kubler-Ross wrote On Grief and Grieving which was co-authored by David Kessler.  In this book the authors show how the 5 stages of death are also the 5 stages of grief.  This was the last book that Kubler-Ross wrote. She passed away in 2004 and the book was published in 2005.  In 2019 Kessler wrote a book entitled Finding Meaning the Sixth Stage of Grief which I own but haven’t yet read.  I learned of the book when I heard Kessler being interviewed by Brene Brown on her podcast in 2020 and I remember thinking that it was a book that I should read but just hadn’t gotten to it.  This past November my best friend died after a year and half battle with cancer and I’m still learning to navigate the grieving process.  After Mindy passed, I remembered the Brene Brown podcast and when I looked up Kessler, I realized he had also written On Grief and Grieving with Kubler-Ross, so I ordered both books and started with this one.  

Before I start, I would like to mention that on several occasions the book reminds the reader that if they find themselves in a place where they need to seek professional help that they should do so and that the book should not replace that. The book reviews the 5 stages of grief but is careful to talk about how the stages have evolved since they were first introduced in 1969.  I found it important to remember that the stages are not fixed. You don’t move from denial, into anger and so on.  The stages are fluid.  You move back and forth between the stages and you might skip some of the stages entirely.  Grief is individual. Everyone experiences grief in different ways but knowing the 5 stages and understanding them can help by allowing yourself to grieve.  

The second section of the book is entitled: The Inner World of Grief.  This section includes 21 topics like: Your loss, relief, emotional rest, tears, dreams, the story, resentment, afterlife and more.  In this section you are reading about the most personal parts of grief many of which a person might experience. Kubler-Ross’ work was founded on interviewing people to learn about how they were dealing with death and grief. This book also includes many stories of how people have handled their grief.  The section in this part of the book that resonated the most with me was “the story”. I have found myself wanting to tell “the story” so much during the past months.  I have the story of our friendship on a permanent loop in my head right now, but I have also found myself telling the story of her passing more than I expected.  The story of the last few months and the last good weekend we had and the story of saying good-bye.  Reading this section of the book was good for me to realized that this is all part of my grieving process. 

The third section is “The Outer World of Grief” which includes topics like anniversaries, clothes and possession, holidays, letter writing, and finances. The fourth section is “Specific Circumstances” and includes the topics of suicide, multiple losses, children, sudden death and others. These sections are more specific aspects of grief which may or may not pertain to every individual.  I thought about skipping some of these sections but I’m glad that I didn’t. While many of them didn’t affect my particular grief, they were informative and helped me think about what other people I have known may have gone through during different times in their lives.  The letter writing section is the one I plan to revisit and complete when I’m ready.

One of my favorite chapters of the book comes towards the end with “The Changing Faces of Grief”.  This is where the authors talk more about how personal grief is. I think after reading this chapter I realized even more that my grief is my own and it’s okay to experience it in my own way and time.  There is no timeline for grief. I have heard others say that you never really stop grieving you just learn to live with your grief as it comes and goes.  I think that is true. My mom died nine years ago and my dad died a year and a half later.  While a day doesn’t go by that I don’t miss my parents, most days I remember them with a smile and I know that I will get to that point at some time in the future with this loss.  The other thing that reading this book helped me realize is that every loss hits you differently and that’s okay too.  Losing your parents when they are in their 80’s is very different from losing a friend who was in her early 50’s. 

The last two chapters of the book are from each of the authors where they discuss their personal stories of grief.  Which I think added a nice touch to the ending especially knowing that Kubler-Ross was herself very near the end of her life when she wrote this.  

This book has been amazingly helpful for me as I’m learning to find my new “normal” life without my best friend. But I also know that grief doesn’t just happen when we lose a loved one.  Grief can show up in our lives in many different ways.  I went through a rough time after I retired, and I now realize that was also a time of grieving.  Many of us felt grief during the pandemic when the world was shut down and we had to find new ways to navigate our daily lives. If you are dealing with any type of loss, I highly recommend this book.

 My first thought when I finished this book was that as a society we don’t allow ourselves the luxury of grief.  While the idea of taking care of our mental health has come a long way in the past 50 years, it still has a long way to go. Grief is an uncomfortable topic both for people who are going through it and for people who care about those going through it.  Reading this book might be one way to help us normalize the grieving process.  I’m also realizing that just the act of writing this book review has been a part of my grieving journey.  Having the opportunity to write about this book and share some of my story with you has been healing.   As I said at the beginning, this one is a very personal book review and I thank you for allowing me the chance to share it with you.