Before COVID-19 upended all of our lives (not that long ago, really), the famous grief counselor David Kessler’s son died, at age 21, of an accidental drug overdose. Kessler, along with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, had changed the way people thought about death and dying, through their descriptions of the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance — naming them and showing how we can get through.
But this personal loss sent Kessler to discover something even deeper, and he wrote "Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief," which came out in late 2019.
In May 2020, when the pandemic was very young, Anne talked with Kessler for the show we re-air this weekend, "Finding Meaning in Desperate Times." It is difficult to find meaning in the darkest part of these times, surrounded by illness and also misinformation and a growing divide among families and friends, in sickness and in health.
Kessler talks about the pandemic, in terms of grief:
- Denial: "This can't be happening in our modern world! There's a virus we don't know how to fight? That can't be."
- Anger: "I'm going to lose my job over this? That will destroy me. I'm furious about that!"
- Bargaining: "All right, if we stay home for two weeks, then everything will go back to normal, right?"
- Depression: "This is going to go on? You're not sure of the end date? That’s so sad."
- And finally, acceptance: "This is our new reality. OK, what can we do now?"
And as for the sixth stage – meaning — Kessler says: “Every generation gets challenged. This is ours. The question is not just ‘What are we going to do after this?', it’s ‘Who are we going to be?’ “
–Shannon