¶ … Grief
The author of this report is asked to analyze and assess the work Lament For a Son as authored by Wolterstorff. Indeed, the author of that treatise exemplifies and shows the five stages of grief as defined and described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. The author of this report will briefly cover the Kubler-Ross framework and how it manifests in the Wolterstorff offering. Further, the author of this report will describe the manner in which Wolterstorff found joy after his loss. Also, there will be a description and a depiction of what death means when it comes to the common Christian narrative. Finally, the author will cover how the hope of a resurrection plays a role in the comforting of Wolterstorff. While the death of his son is shown to have hit Wolterstoff very hard as he offers his thoughts, it is clear that he eventually finds at least some solace and comfort.
Summary
Those that are familiar with grief and how it is commonly dealt with are probably aware, to at least some degree, of the Kubler-Ross model. Indeed, the five stages of grief within this model are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In the denial stage, a person tends to be in shock and refuses to believe that the person they have lost is gone. With anger, a person will be angry about their loss. However, it is a necessary step in the process....
Lament for a Son: Christian Grief There are few human experiences as all-encompassing in their horror as the loss of a child. It feels unnatural for a child to die before a parent. The "natural" order of things is that the parents raise the children, se them on their way, and die, making way for the new generation to make its own mark on the world. When a child dies, especially
Lament for a Son, Wolterstorff talks about how a Christian worldview can help coping with grief and loss. Wolterstorff's perspective corresponds with Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, even though the narrative is not formally about those stages. The stages of grief provides a model for the ways human beings process death and loss, not to show that there is a "right" or "good" way of experiencing grief but simply
Architect: A Son's Journey could easily be viewed as a solipsistic documentary. The filmmaker deliberately titles the film as My Architect, with a subtitle A Son's Journey as a way of signaling the viewer that this is Nathaniel Kahn's vision of his father. Nathaniel's purpose for making the film is expressly stated as being the discovery of his father's identity, especially following the mystery of his death. Yet through
Stages Grief Losing a son or daughter challenges personal faith in God and can bring a person to the brink of despair. In Lament for a Son, Nicholas Wolterstorff accomplishes the difficult goal of communicating his grief over the loss of his son. The author achieves his goal by grounding his sorrow in Biblical truth and also by allowing himself to proceed between the various stages of death within the Kubler-Ross
Five Stages of Grief and Wolterstorff's Lament Wolterstorff (1987) finds joy after his loss by "owning it" as he notes in his Preface (p. 6). He makes the loss of his son part of his identity rather than some obstacle to his happiness or to getting back to the way things were: he accepts it and embraces it and allows it to transform him on a deep, emotional, and psychological
2005, John Ellsworth, father of deceased soldier Justin Ellsworth, made national news when he asked to be granted access to his deceased son's e-mails. Twenty-year-old Justin had been killed in Fallujah on November 13, 2004, by a roadside bomb. The least, Mr. Ellsworth could do, the father felt, was to collect these e-mails that his son had written whilst in Iraq and fashion them into some sort of memorial.
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