I sat in the sterile office staring out the window covered in blinds that had at least a quarter inch thick of dust obstructing my lackluster view of the highway. Once I started talking and tears were flowing, I asked for a kleenex. I had forgotten that I already had the box behind me. 

The last 14 months seem to have brought up more grief than I can remember in my life. It’s been a lot to process grieving the loss of celebrating milestones with friends and family, the loss of jobs, the loss of school community and school events, the loss of holiday gatherings, the loss of loved ones old and young, the loss of social connections and the loss of travel. 

Since I can’t time travel to my pre-Covid, less grief filled life, I’ve been doing some of my own grief processing. I was reminded about the five stages of grief model introduced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining,...