We Did Not Know What Was Coming Series: Acceptance? Really?
PREFACE: To say the last seven years have been a journey of growth for me and this country is an understatement. To help me process and cope with the roller-coaster of emotions I have felt these years, I started writing on Medium right after the 2016 election. My last series ended December 31, 2020, after Biden won the presidential election.
Recently I realized I missed writing “in my journal” and decided to go back to the very beginning and re-read my essays. I wanted to see where I started out on November 9, 2016, and where I am now. I decided to repost my favorite blogs with a short present-day commentary and continue onto current times.
I hope a few of you will join me on this journey of recollection, reflection, and learning. Little did we know what we were headed into.
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Acceptance? Really? December 31, 2020
I have resisted writing this essay on acceptance. Since Trump was elected in 2016, I have gone round and round through the first four phases of the Kubler-Ross model of loss — shock and denial, anger, bargaining, and crushing grief depression. In this moment, I feel ill prepared to write about stage five: acceptance.
To be fair, I intellectually understand the mechanics of this stage. In this phase, people begin to come to grips with their own mortality, that of a loved one, or the circumstances surrounding a tragic loss. Acceptance does not mean that the person feels good or right about the loss, nor does acceptance mean forgetfulness or pretending that it has not happened.
Acceptance can usually be seen by an individual taking ownership for themselves and their actions. The person embraces the present — both good and bad — to shape the future. They begin to accept responsibility. They work toward accomplishing tasks and then are proud of the results. They are willing to change their behavior in response to the needs of others. They appear to be more content as they journey toward a more normalized life.
It means noticing what you are fighting against, validating your desire to fight against it, and re-orienting yourself to the reality of the moment you are in. It means not getting stuck, or getting un-stuck, from other stages of grief and loss. Mindfulness and a non-judgmental curious attitude are hallmarks of this stage.
Make no mistake: life has forever been altered after the loss of a beloved or significant life change. In the acceptance stage, new roles and responsibilities emerge. New priorities may be identified. New relationships will need to be formed. Some duties and tasks may need to be given up for someone else to handle as well as the taking on of new duties and tasks. Life continues — never the same after the loss but ever pressing toward hope.
In her book On Grief and Grieving, Dr. Kubler-Ross explains, “Acceptance does not mean forgetting your loved one, or being happy all the time, or not being sad about your loss anymore. Acceptance is not about liking a situation. It is about acknowledging all that has been lost and learning to live with that loss.”
It is also important to note that acceptance does not mean the end of grief. Acceptance comes from working through the disbelief, the anger, the sadness, and reaching a place where you understand your loss is real. In this way, the other stages of grief are important to experience, because they can help lead you to acceptance. This is why you may hear people say that “grief is painful, but it needs to be done.” Acceptance eventually happens because you have processed painful truths and the difficult reality that you have lost a part of your life.
The other stages of grief, such as anger and depression, may resurface again, even a long time after your loss. This doesn’t mean that you have moved backwards or are ‘failing’ at acceptance. This is perfectly natural. Acceptance is not a finish line that you cross; it’s an ongoing process that you must work through as you rediscover ways to enjoy life.
So, we listen to our needs; we move; we change; we grow; we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in their lives. We invest in our friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.
Healing looks like remembering, recollecting, and reorganizing. Acceptance isn’t a stage, a place where you arrive; rather, it is an active way of being. We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing, or our old job is gone, or our health has changed, or the country has been altered inexplicably under the tyranny of Trump and we don’t know what comes next.
Examples of the acceptance stage include:
Breakup or divorce: “Ultimately, this was a healthy choice for me.”
Job loss: “I’ll be able to find a way forward from here and can start a new path.”
Death of a loved one: “I am so fortunate to have had so many wonderful years with him, and he will always be in my memories.”
Terminal illness diagnosis: “I have the opportunity to tie things up and make sure I get to do what I want in these final weeks and months.”
Trump in the White House: “I am now awake to my responsibilities as a citizen and human being to elect responsible decent honest people to office.”
2020 is lurching to an end. Trump refuses to accept he lost the election to Biden and is implementing a scorched earth policy to punish the country. I sit and mourn the terrible cost to our citizens and society inflicted upon us by this terrible man. In this moment, I am not yet able to move towards or write about acceptance in the time of Trump. Tom Frieden has.
Tom Frieden is the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a former commissioner of the New York City Health Department. On May 14th, Frieden penned an OpEd in the Washington Post about coronavirus grief using the Kubler-Ross model of loss, focusing specifically on acceptance. Here is the article in its entirety:
We Need To Enter the Fifth Stage of Coronavirus Grief: Acceptance
Washington Post Opinion by Tom Frieden: May 14, 2020:
The five stages of grief provide a useful framework for thinking about crises caused by the pandemic. Although the concept sometimes oversimplifies a complex process, there are core truths: People tend to accept harsh realities gradually and with difficulty. People don’t necessarily proceed through all the stages or in linear order. But recognition of the pandemic’s impact, and widespread embrace of the final stage, acceptance, could speed our collective path to new post-pandemic normal.
Covid-19 has upended lives around the world. Millions of people are mourning deaths. Hundreds of millions have lost jobs. We are acknowledging, and grieving, these losses and the life rituals — family get-togethers, graduations, weddings — disrupted by the pandemic. No one has been unscathed.
Familiar stages of grief have been visible. At first, world leaders and even many experts in respiratory disease were in denial, hoping that the coronavirus would disappear. The pandemic provoked anger — at China, immigrants and the (essential) public health measures imposed to reduce spread. Some have tried to bargain, suggesting that the pandemic would be mild, harming “only” the elderly and infirm, or might even fizzle. Others succumbed to depression and considered giving up on control measures, hoping to magically achieve “herd immunity.”
These responses are understandable. But the sooner people come to terms with the reality of the pandemic, the quicker we can prepare for lasting changes to the ways we work, learn, relax, govern ourselves and even treat one another.
Details will emerge in the coming weeks and months, but some aspects of our changed lives are already clear: There will be more remote learning and telework and fewer in-person meetings. Travelers may have more space on planes, trains and buses. They’ll probably also face new barriers, including periodic border closures and quarantines.
Schools and workplaces will better accommodate people vulnerable to severe disease, such as the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. Universities may shift to more online learning; many could close or be forced to adopt different economic models, including lower tuition.
Facilities will change, too: Chairs and tables can no longer safely be close together for now. More elevators and doors are likely to be made touch-free, hand sanitizer and masks will be abundant, and disinfection will become routine.
Our leisure habits will shift. Instead of large indoor gatherings, we’ll enjoy the outdoors. We may go to fewer restaurants and bars, at least for a while, but, as many already have in lockdown, we’ll find alternatives to meaningfully connect with people and groups. When the gym reopens and I’m able to play squash again, my partners and I will skip a match if we feel unwell; we’ll enter the court through a sanitized doorknob, might wear masks and won’t shake hands after the game. Professional athletes will learn to compete without in-person spectators, at least for a time, and may skip the high-fives after touchdowns or home runs.
In the long run, covid-19 will make health care safer. Hospital-associated infections have been one of this country’s leading causes of death; as hospitals adopt measures to control covid-19, they can reduce other preventable infections too. The pandemic could also make health care smarter: To improve personal and community resilience, people with chronic diseases need to receive better care. This crisis is poised to force overdue changes that will make health care more convenient and efficient, with clinicians shifting to telemedicine and administrators making electronic health records interoperable.
The pandemic may change where and how we live. Elderly people may increasingly choose to remain with family as they age rather than relocating to retirement communities or nursing homes. Cities may lose some of their luster as density and public transit, once so central to urban life, may hamper efforts to tamp down disease transmission.
When it comes to our collective investments, there may be more appetite to adequately fund global health and strengthen international institutions to protect against future threats. If we’re rational, we will address many gaps in epidemic prevention around the world, including support for communities and enforcement to close exotic animal markets. Perhaps there will be broader recognition that government has essential, irreplaceable functions — and should be held accountable for protecting citizens.
Of course, effective treatment could minimize the health and economic harms of the pandemic. And if a safe, effective and accessible vaccine is developed, we could return to a largely pre-covid reality, with most people gaining appreciation for the value of vaccines.
But at this point it’s clear: Our lives will be altered by the pandemic for months or years to come. As a society, we may become more reliant on younger people and those already exposed to the virus, and more attentive to shielding the vulnerable. Caring for others and prioritizing the collective good could lead to a positive societal change: First by necessity and then by choice, we may come to accept that we are all in this together.
Frieden said it all, right? He named all the pain and confusion we in this country have and will continue to experience. Then he offers us a new view of how we can grow, change and become something better in spite of the loss we are experiencing. Not acceptance as in simply lying down or giving up but that life is altered forever in deep painful ways, and yet we can take steps to create meaning and positive growth out of disaster.
Frieden shared his macro perspective on stage 5 acceptance. After reading his piece, I wondered if I could find micro insight with respect to my own grief acceptance in the maelstrom created by Trump. I came up with the following:
· I accept democracy cannot be taken for granted
· I accept despots can be elected
· I accept life in this country is forever changed under Trump and his corrupt enablers
· I will never accept or forget the harm malignant, selfish elected officials and Trump supporters have done and continue to do to the citizenry of this country
· I will never accept the bad actions and policies on the part of Trump and enabling Republicans as forgivable
· I accept my responsibility in doing nothing to elect Hillary which contributed to Trump’s election
· I accept my deep grief and sorrow over the state-of-affairs in this country
· I accept I am brave and courageous to explore and work through my personal and civic grief and loss
· I accept I need to join with other like-minded individuals for emotional support
· I accept I need to move into action to embody the values of kindness, equality, truth and honesty in government and through all of society
· I accept I will feel waves of sorrow for years to come as I grieve what this country lost with respect to its humanity and decency
· I accept my resilience as a human and citizen and recognize there are millions more like me in this country who have moved into action to right the terrible wrongs of Trump and his cabal
· I accept I will come, in time, to see the light coming out of the terrible darkness of the last four years
Perhaps I have made a few tiny baby steps into acceptance after all.
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Commentary: December 24, 2023
I am happy with the list I wrote in 2020. My acceptance on each item has deepened in the years since. I do want to add one more very important thing I have come to accept in the three years since I wrote that essay.
Though I still grieve all the harm done by trump and his surrogates, I accept that time is on our side. trump will die. His old white political surrogates will die. Old magas will die and all the while this country will continue to become more diverse in ethnicity, faith, gender identity, race and age. This makes me very happy.
I accept that because of this dark time of trump many good people have awakened to their responsibility to act on behalf of justice and decency. At this moment there are heroes out there working to save our democracy and bring light into our government and society. I believe there will be even more heroes in the future. That makes me happy.
Finally, I accept that I may not live to see all the above and that is okay. I, like Martin Luther King, believe and accept that the moral arc of the universe is long and bends at the elbow of justice. Reading the history of our country since I moved to Washington DC two years ago has affirmed that for me. This makes me happy as well.
As 2023 closes, I realize I am not the sputtering rage-filled woman I was on November 6, 2016. I accept I did nothing to help Hillary get elected. I take responsibility for my failure to act on behalf of this country. I have crawled through the stages of grief to understand myself, those who still support trump, and the personal and social issues facing us now and, in the years, to come.
In this process I lost naivete and a child’s blind faith in the goodness of people. I believe and always will believe we each have a god-spark within us. I no longer assume that spark is bright and shiny. I no longer assume positive intent. I accept trust and regard must now be earned to be in relationship with someone. I accept that sounds harsh and that is okay.
I lost respect for politicians and judges who I thought served the Constitution and the best interests of all people in this country. I lost an innocence that believed our country was special. All those losses have been deaths for me both small and large.
Yet, I have not given up by a long shot. In this last stage of grief in the time of trump, I turn increasingly to ways in which to make meaning in my life as an individual and as a citizen of this country.
There are many things I can choose to do in the coming year to ensure voters get out to re-elect Joe Biden, help Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and increase the Democratic majority in the Senate. There are many things I can do to advocate for policies that further kindness, equality, honesty and social justice for all people in this country. There are many things I can do to continue healing my own wounds so that my energy can help others heal.
In this moment though, I am resting and reflecting as 2023 winds to an end. I will turn my attention to action steps as we move into January. No doubt it is going to be quite a year, but I feel strong and ready — well done grief will do that to a person.
A final word on timing — this essay concludes the seven year cycle (almost to the day) of the We Did Not Know What Was Coming Series. Reading, updating and re-posting has been helpful to me to say the least. Now it is time to look ahead. I begin a new series in January 2024 — Making Meaning.
