The grief resulting from the death of a loved one knows not the passage of time. There are five stages of grief according to the late psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler Ross. In 1969, she first laid out her theory of these five stages in her best-selling book On Death and Dying. This paradigm on the process of grieving is not new and has become familiar to professionals and lay people alike. 

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I’ll tell you how the story ends. It’s me living alone in a subsidized apartment downtown. There is currently an infestation of “drain gnats” and since I cannot afford bleach or drain cleaner, I’m attempting to deal with them by boiling copious amounts of water and pouring it down the pipes. However, the internet has informed me this is futile as the larvae can survive extreme heat. Now I have resorted to taping over every drain in my unit save for one – I feel like a crazy person doing this, but I’m not alone.

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During this time of pandemic, I’m surely not the only one dreaming of going some place new and unfamiliar as our apartments and houses slowly become all too familiar. Here’s a post from my friend Stan Wiebe to inspire us of all the places we may one day go.

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Growth happens in the subtle spaces,

beneath the Earth,

before we can see any evidence

of any new beginnings.

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The letter delivered news she had been waiting on for several months and now that it was finally in her hands, the words to describe how she felt eluded her. In fact, all manner of feeling eluded her. She was numb, which was not what she anticipated. Elation is what she knew she should be feeling but, any hint of it was overshadowed by the question of what was to come next. 

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Here is another post titled with an unfortunate question. Before I give my answer, I need to emphasize that this post is not intended to cause any victim or survivor to feel pressure and/or shame over their choice on whether or not to report a rape. Many factors go into this very personal decision and you must always put your personal safety and well-being first. That being said, there are two main reasons to report a rape.

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