How does that go again? 
The five stages of grief? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
I’ve read seven:
Shock, Denial, Bargaining, Fear, Anger, Despair, and Acceptance
mm
The five given by **Cyros ** are the same ones that I’ve always heard (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). They’re the ones described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her well know work On Death and Dying.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stage of dying:
• Denial and isolation: “This is not happening to me.”
• Anger: “How dare God do this to me.”
• Bargaining: “Just let me live to see my son graduate.”
• Depression: “I can’t bear to face going through this, putting my family through this.”
• Acceptance: “I’m ready, I don’t want to struggle anymore.”
Here is a critique and further explanation of the theory.
Just remember, not everyone goes thru them all, they generally don’t go thru them in order, and people tend to jump around back and forth from one stage to another. Ideally they end up in and can stay in acceptance before meeting their end. But it’s not a one-way linear progression.
Someone had to say it:
…and according to Dogbert, it’s Denial, Anger, Acceptance, and Economy. With the punch line “Bury him wrapped in some newspapers. That’s what he would have wanted.”
(Quoted from imperfected memory.)
I’ve found that these stages are applicable whenever people are confronted with bad news or a tragic event, not necessarily their impending death.
Great quote!
I’m just shocked that a poster named DrDeth didn’t already have this memorized.
I’m glad it only took 7 posts.
Wings (a much underrated series) had a scene where Thomas Haden-Church goes through the stages in about eight seconds.
It isn’t true. It can’t be.
Because none of those things means squat when Death really comes for you… 
I once saw a chart that was drawn as a circle with double-ended arrows around the circle between the stages. Made a lot of sense. It’s more practical/realistic than visualizing it as some kind of one-way flow chart.
That’s documented. (Wikipedia article) Grief is applicable to ANY loss. Depending on the severity of the loss you may go through the stages faster than other losses.
IANAPsychiatrist, but I did a research paper on the stages of grief for a psychology class I took. It stuck with me.