Few tragedies, if any, surpass the loss of a loved one. Persistent, traumatic grief can lead even the stoutest of souls into a benighted cycle of despair, and when that loss comes abruptly through accidents, violence, sudden illness or suicide, the emotional shock inflicts the most heinous of tolls upon survivors. Much has been written about the actual shape grieving takes; the popularly known ‘Five Stages of Grief’, more precisely called the Kübler-Ross model (and originally based on observations of terminally ill patients facing their own imminent deaths), is a passage through various phases that lead an individual to the acknowledgment of their new, unasked-for reality: denial, bargaining, anger, depression and, ultimately, acceptance.