Grace is gone

Grace is hurt seriously…

She is… gone…

            No eye-catching computer graphics, no exaggerated acting, no mind-blowing storyline, no bombastic languages and no complex scientific materials were presented in the movie, but a calm yet saddening flow permeated throughout the whole movie, Grace is gone, which emphasized a lot on the experiencing of grief over death.

            Grace was a soldier who had died in a war, and the wife of Stanley. Due to her death, Stanley had been experiencing a series of mixed and complicated feelings, or intense grief. Interestingly, the ways he had gone through the grief was relatively similar to the five stages of grief model suggested by Kubler-Ross (1969) — Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

Denial is the first stage of the model; it is the initial reaction of one responds to the loss or death of a person means a lot to him or her; typically trying to deny the facts. It was obvious when Stanley was reacting in a huge shock after being informed by the officers about the death of Grace, and doing nothing for the whole day. Later, he stopped his daughters from eating the casserole; this was a sign of him denying the fact.

Stanley was very angry and behaved aggressively when his younger brother, John was trying to offer a sincere help; this could be explained by Anger. After the masking effect of denial wears off, the more direct and intense emotion will start to appear, and that it is anger, which is projected to innocent target that is not to be blamed rationally. Moving to the third stage, or Bargaining, Stanley started to feel vulnerable and helpless towards the loss of Grace; he was talking to himself in the phone call, and wishing that he was the one to be in the war and Grace was the one to stay, blaming himself for this.

Though the sequence of Depression happened before the second stage in this movie, as well as the absence of associated mourning, Stanley had still indeed showed a breakdown when he could not keep it to himself anymore; he cried in pain miserably. Lastly, the Acceptance where one has finally decided to face and accept the truth, understanding the loss can no longer be underdone. This could be told when Stanley had eventually told his daughter about the death of Grace after he had actually accepted the fact of the death of his wife.

Stanley was a strict father; he set rules for his daughters and wanted them to follow strictly until the death of Grace. He allowed them to pierce their ears before 13 years old, brought them to Enchanted Garden that they longed to go, and let them to sleep late. It was because Stanley had realized, realized that life is too fragile, things can be gone out of sudden, and leave with regret, and so, living a life with so many restrictions and rules was not for himself nor his daughters anymore as he did not want to filled with regret again.

It is life, something that one can never had a full control of. Life can be excellently good to one today, but leave one with grief the next day; it is unpredictable. Instead of keep on crying over the spilled milk or put the blame of everything to oneself, one should rather keep moving forward as long as one lives. Hence, it is important to live in the moment, and be appreciative of every possible second one can have; live a life of one wants, stop holding one’s own back with all the unnecessary worry and responsibility.

Death of the closed one is not the end of the world, but perhaps a grieving moment, which allow people to view the world more differently with opened mind, to have a thorough self-reflection, and live a better life.

Reference

Kubler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying (1st ed.). Macmillan, New York: The Macmillan Company.