Zibby Mag

By Jason B. Rosenthal

In 1969, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the theory that there are five stages of grief, culminating in acceptance—a final act of moving on.

Sorry, Dr. Kübler-Ross, your stages don’t resonate with me.

In the context of my grief, what resonates with me is music. My soul is always filled with it. Songs float through my body and my mind all day, every day. Wilco feels like my home in Chicago. Manchester Orchestra helps me process the grief I can’t seem to let go of, while it strikes that rock-and-roll current that runs through me. Sweet Susan Tedeschi rips at my heartstrings with her angelic voice. When I want to feel the overwhelming beauty in despair, Elliott Smith feels spot on. And live music speaks to me in a way that no other art form can.

My passion for a good live show is no secret to anyone who knows me, and to many others around the globe, thanks to an article written by a woman in the “Modern Love” column of the New York Times. You know the one—my wife, Amy, who was dying of ovarian cancer, wrote a piece that was essentially a creative play on a personal ad for me—”You May Want to Marry My Husband”—though it was so much more than that.

In the six years since I lost her, music has been my guide and my comfort, through my life and through my grief. There’s no timetable to the pattern of grief. There are no stages. Like the music in my soul, it permeates every cell in my body. Not unlike the way cancer cells overpower our healthy ones, the goal is to overwhelm those grief cells with love, empathy, and compassion, guided by the classic structure of a song.

While studying for my masters in social work, I wrote an essay about how children deal with grief. One intervention is utilizing the arts to convey how kids feel, as they often cannot articulate these complex emotions yet. For example, adolescents resonate deeply with music and are often encouraged to describe how they feel with lyrics. This led me to think about how the structure of a song—something that I relate to in a profound way—more effectively characterizes grief than any prescribed stages.

The introduction sets the tempo, the energy, and the attitude of how one will walk through the world after a significant loss. As I navigated a rather public version of grief, I thought I had a clear understanding of what it meant. But I learned from others who shared their stories with me that loss can vary from losing a job that helped define your identity, to an unexpected divorce, to the death of a relative, child, or friend. Any of these ruinous events will make you question your entire existence.

Unmoored from my identity as husband, I sought connection through the stories of others and, of course, music. While at first I thought my story was unique and nobody could possibly understand how I was feeling, I soon found comfort in the versions of loss people were eager to share with me. As I stepped out and told my story publicly, the connections I made were deeply moving. There was solace in talking with a widow about what life became after losing her partner. We shared things only someone going through the experience can truly understand. To this day, I still get emails from strangers thanking me for the way I candidly spoke about the realities of loss. It is in this very personal storytelling that connections are made.

The verse tells a story in a poetic fashion. For me, this meant the process of experiencing inevitable bereavement and mourning. This was the opposite of denial. But it caused me to question everything. For example—and you can fill in your own blank here—once upon a time I was a devoted husband, father, and friend. But a large part of that identity had vanished. So who was I now?

Then, like a pre-chorus or refrain, came the realization that I had a choice to make: Would I be the person who falls into an endless abyss of darkness and despair, or would I honor the one I loved and make the most of my time on this planet? Would I convert that precious love into an appreciation of what remained, despite the threads of grief that weave their way into my daily life? Will the emotions that fill our collective spirit—joy, happiness, and awe—enable me to move forward? Maybe the answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Finally, the chorus of grief is born out of the love we’ll always feel for the person who is no longer with us. It’s inescapable, repeating itself over and over in our minds and in our hearts. At the same time, if we’ll allow it, surviving the darkest moments of grief can bless us with a greater capacity for love, empathy, compassion, and kindness, which has been the case for me. After the chorus is over, we’re left with a better understanding of what life is all about. Grief is not going anywhere, so perhaps the best approach is to just let it be.

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Jason B. Rosenthal is the author of the book My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me published by Harper and co-author (with his daughter Paris) of the New York Times #1 bestselling book Dear Boy. He is also a board chair of the Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation which supports both childhood literacy and research in early detection of ovarian cancer. Jason is also a public speaker, lawyer, and devoted father of three.