The grief process: a preparation for death.

Despite the multitude of losses we experience in our lifetime, death is likely to be the most paramount. Acceptance of losses and death takes time and energy as an individual passes through various phases of a process known as the grief process. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1969) has defined five stages in the grief process that individuals pass through in moving toward acceptance of losses. A case study has been presented to share one family's journey through these five stages. If a strict disease-oriented viewpoint is adopted, then the case was a failure: the patient died. From an emotional and spiritual viewpoint, however, this individual and his family achieved success, as they had time to complete their journey to acceptance.