¶ … 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 level. He also strives to make it impactful on a spiritual level and works towards "owning it redemptively" (p. 6) so that it might make him more completely in the light of God and His mysterious ways. This stage of acceptance, the final stage of grieving according to the Kubler-Ross model comes only after a process, in which the other first four stages of the model are navigated by Wolterstorff -- denial, anger, bargaining and depression. This paper will show how Wolterstorff moves through these five stages and emerges via the final stage of acceptance to find joy in the hope of a Resurrection.
The root of Wolterstorff's joy, of course, is found in his faith -- which allows him the hope of the Resurrection (even though it is no comfort initially because the impact of the death is too great for comfort to be felt). He feels what Christ feels on the cross when he exclaims, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mat 27:46). Although he participates in the "leave taking" when he touches his son's dead body and makes his son's death finally real to himself (p. 36), Wolterstorff does not actually take joy in this process: as he says, "I buried myself that warm June day" (p. 42). The joy...
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
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
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
suffer is to live. Suffering makes up a large part of a person's life. In Nicholas Wolterstorff's Lament of a Son, a collection of quotes and anecdotes related to the author's experience with the premature loss of Eric, his son, the author provides a way of dealing with loss that is both inspiring and personal. What turned into a tragic mountain climbing accident, a father's journey to accepting a
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now