My mom just died by my side a couple of weeks ago. My friend Jae told me that the stages of grief are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Letting Go and Acceptance and they don’t necessarily go in that order. I think I ran through them all- twice (maybe more) and sometimes all at once. My mom had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer over two years ago and chose the chemotherapy route. She was far braver than I.