The five stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief.

Memories are the only real gifts we can leave our children.

I look for mystery and try to decipher it while knowing it is an impossible task. I look for memory, where Mystery lies.

Death is but a transition from this life to another existence where there is no more pain and anguish. All the bitterness and disagreements will vanish, and the only thing that lives forever is love.

"...All events are blessings given to us to learn from and therefore we should be grateful for the opportunity to grow and evolve into our best selves."

It is important to feel the anger without judging it, without attempting to find meaning in it. It may take many forms: anger at the health-care system, at life, at your loved one for leaving. Life is unfair. Death is unfair. Anger is a natural reaction to the unfairness of loss.

My patients taught me not how to die, but how to live.