The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not “get over” the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same. Nor would you want to. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004)
Kubler-Ross devoted most of her adult life to death and dying. She was a pioneer in hospice care, palliative care, and a leading researcher in the lives of the terminally ill. “One of her greatest wishes was to build a hospice for abandoned infants and children infected with HIV to give them a lasting home where they could live until their death. Kübler-Ross attempted to set this up in the late 1980s in Virginia, but local residents feared the possibility of infection and blocked the necessary re-zoning. In October 1994, she lost her house and many possessions, including photos, journals, and notes, to an arson fire that is suspected to have been set by opponents of her AIDS work.” (Wikipedia)
In her lifetime Kubler-Ross wrote over twenty books on death and dying, was in the National Women’s Hall of Fame, was one of Time magazine’s Top Thinkers of the Twentieth Century, Woman of the Year in 1977, and became a leader as an advocate for spiritual guides and the afterlife despite scandals from her association with a charlatan medium in the late 1970s.
When I enrolled my mother in hospice care in 2011, I didn’t realize the connection the excellent end of life care she received through the program had been co-founded by a woman who believed in treating the dying with dignity. The team of caregivers we had for the last few months of Mom’s life were compassionate, capable, and centered on her needs. I was also amazed by their assistance throughout the first year of my grieving process following her death.
As I approach the twelfth anniversary of my mother’s death, I want to honor Elisabeth Kubler-Ross during Women’s History Month, one of the women who had the courage to explore her passion for peace, to protest injustice, to pursue theories considered to be too controversial in an unknown frontier. Elisabeth gave us permission to grieve for losses too painful to deny.
Yes, the reality is that we will grieve our losses forever, but it’s also true we will be whole again. Never the same, but whole again. That’s cause for celebration.
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For all those who grieve.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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