Grace Is Gone.

Grace Is Gone is a tender and touching movie about a father whose wife, a soldier, is killed in Iraq learns how to cope with grief and summon courage to tell his two daughters the terrible news. This movie evokes many complicated emotions which makes the audiences easily relate to themselves and feel like a fifth member of the family. Inevitably, we all will die one day. This is part of life, even we know that, we can still feel overwhelmed when the day comes. Coping with the loss of someone we love is one of life’s biggest challenges. We may experience all kinds of difficult emotions, such as disbelief, separation anxiety, despair, sadness, anger, guilt and loneliness.

Grief is an emotional suffering that accompany the loss of loved one. Grieving process takes time, it cannot be rushed or forced. Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief in 1969. She stated that these stages of grief are the responses to loss that many people have, but there is no typical response to loss. Everyone respond to loss differently, there is no right or wrong way to grieve. People do not have to experience the stages in a sequential order, or experience all the stages to recover from grief. Grief is more like a roller-coaster ride that is full of ups and down, rather than an orderly progression of stages.

The Five Stages of Grief:

1. Denial. When Stanley receives the news of her wife’s death from the officers, he denies the fact that the death of his wife has happened and think that his wife is still alive. He brings his daughters to a trip, so he could escape from the reality of his wife’s death. He also makes phone call to home to listen his wife’s voice on the answering machine. This allows him to live in the past when Grace was still alive.                                                                                             
2. Anger. When people come to this stage, denial is replaced by feelings of anger. The anger could be rational or irrational, and projected onto environment at times almost at random. In the movie, we can see that Stanley is out of control when his daughter Heidi who is concerned about her school assignment and her father missing work refuses to follow the spontaneous road trip. Moreover, he almost losses his temper when his brother John angrily confronts him and asks him to tell Heidi and Dawn the truth of their mother’s death.                                                                                                   
3. Bargaining. People at this stage will try to negotiate and hope to do something to reverse the death. There is a scene where Stanley makes another phone call to home and leave a message saying that he wished he were the one stayed in military instead of Grace. He wished his eyes could function normally, so he would be able to stay with Grace and protect her.                                                                                   
4.  Depression. After realizing there would not be any changes to what had happened, sadness and hopeless may come at this point of time. Stanley finally decides to tell his daughters what has happened, he brings them to a beach and tell them of their mother’s death. When they all realize Grace is gone, they hug together and cry, just letting the loss settles in their soul. At times the loss of loved one may be too overwhelming for us to face, so depression is a normal response at this point of time instead of a sign of mental illness.                                                                                                                                          
5. Acceptance. This is the last stage of grief where people accept the reality of loss and are at peace with what has happened. Stanley finally accept the fact that his wife is gone and that he needs to buck up for the life afterwards. The final scene shows Stanley and his daughters at Grace’s grave, implying that they have started to accept the death of Grace and face the inevitable task of changing their lives. 

When we are suffering from a significant loss, so are the rest of our family members. Grieving is a long journey that we need to walk hand in hand. If it is difficult enough for an adult to cope with, and for children, experiencing a bereavement could be even more difficult to cope with. We can help our children to understand grief and prepare them for their experience of loss by gently telling them what has happened. It is better to be honest and tell them the truth rather than covering it up, because it may be more hurtful if they listen from others. We could share their feelings and support them through the heartbreaking time by letting them know how we feel and that is fine to experience such feelings. It is also important to note that every children reacts to loss differently, so be guided by children and let them set their pace.