inessential by Brent Simmons

One Stage

It’s been said that there are several stages of grief, starting with disbelief, hitting depression somewhere in the middle, and ending with acceptance.

And many people have assumed that our reaction to the latest Presidential election would, or should, follow that model.

I don’t think that’s right. At least not for me. My stages-of-grief model looks like this:

  1. Rage.

That’s the complete list. I don’t claim that it’s productive or moral or that I’m a good person — just that it’s true.

Here’s the thing: this isn’t really grief. You probably know all too well what it’s like to lose a loved one. A very sad thing happens, and you recover slowly, and not in a straight line. That’s grief.

But the Presidential election isn’t one sad thing that we’ll recover from. It’s a promise that terrible things will happen later.

This is not grief.

To everyone who continues to call for unity, who says that we should get over it and come together as a country, I’d ask why should I.