Does “denial” mean they don’t know the person has died?
Denial in grief has been misinterpreted over the years. When the stage of denial was first introduced in “On Death and Dying,” it focused on the person who was dying. In this book, “On Grief and Grieving,” the person who may be in denial is grieving the loss of a loved one. For a person who is dying, denial may look like disbelief. They may be going about life and actually denying that a terminal illness exists. For a person who has lost a loved one, however, the denial is more symbolic than literal. This does not mean that you literally don’t know your loved one has died. It means you come home and you can’t believe than your wife isn’t going to walk in the door at any minute or that your husband is just away on a business trip. You simply can’t fathom that he will never walk through that door again.
