Through the Dark

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced her five stages in 1969, describing dying patients coming to terms with their own mortality, not people left behind after someone else's death. Through the Dark starts by dismantling the "grief scoreboard" myth that grew out of that misreading, drawing on grief researcher George Bonanno's decades of research following bereaved people, which found no single order and no schedule to fail at. Written by Catherine B. Oliver from her own kitchen table in the raw stretch after losing her own person, the book moves through five parts: the immediate aftermath, the waves of grief and your personal Trigger Map, getting through ordinary days, the complicated heart of grief (guilt, anger, relief, ambivalence), and keeping going without leaving them behind.