Grace is gone

            “Grace is gone” is a movie that talks about how a man reacts towards his wife’s death, and how does he prepare in order to tell his daughters the heart-broken news. It portrays how helpless a father is to be forced to disclose the news towards his daughters alone, as he is struggling to find the best way in reducing the pain of his daughters after notifying the news. We can see his changes towards his daughters throughout the journey of taking them to “Enchanted Garden”. He transforms from a strict father towards a more lenient parent as he realizes that he needs to take the role as a mother as well. Besides, he tries to compromise towards things that he used to be disagree with, such as letting his daughters to get piercing, teaching his eldest daughter to smoke and allowing them skip class, in order to cheer his daughters up before hearing about the bad news. In preparing himself to disclose the news towards his daughters, Stanley undergoes five stages of grief. 

            There are five stages in Kubler-Ross model of grief, which indicates how people deal with death. The first stage is denial, where people would refuse to believe the reality. Stanley has shown denial towards the death of his wife, Grace when he refuses to let the army officers to enter his house and stops his daughters from eating the condolence food from the someone. He tries to denial the fact that his wife is death and even takes his daughter away from home to prevent them from hearing the news. He also avoids seeing other people by not going to work to prevent them from saying condolence. Later, he moves to anger stage when he turns out with a fight with his brother when he wants to tell the girls the truth. His emotions are unable and he could easily become frustrated and sad. As we could see, he asks his girls to leave his mother’s house and the motel immediately after he is being triggered by something that could arouse his anger or sadness. Stanley does not show any sign of negotiations in his grieving process. He does not show any wish for wanting his wife to come back by exchanging something he treasures. Instead, he portrays lots of depression, where he shows sadness towards the loss of his wife and feels helpless on dealing with his daughters. He keeps calling back home, just to listen to his wife’s voice on voicemail and tells her his depression and sense of helplessness after losing her. He would cry during the midnight without letting his daughters to figure out. He also rejects others help and instead decides a have a family trip with his daughters. When it comes to the final stage, which is acceptance, he shows his acceptance towards the death of his wife by deciding to tell his daughters the truth. When he is preparing to tell his daughters, he is also preparing himself to accept the truth. Therefore, the journey of him travelling to “Enchanted Garden” with his daughters displays the transition of different stages in grieving towards the death of his wife. Stanley’s grieving process matches with Kubler-Ross’s concept that not everyone will experience each stages of grief.

            Although it is a very touching movie that portrays the love of a father towards his daughters and also people’s grieving towards mortality, I still not very agree with Stanley’s acts in preparing his daughters to accept the truth. He somehow would classical condition his daughters to relate sadness as consequences of enjoying happiness. All the changes he has done, such as travelling with daughters, allowing them to do what they want and more are because of one reason: he wants to prepare them to accept the sad news. So, in future, when he acts differently again, his daughters might think that something bad happens again and it may be hard for them to believe that his changes of attitude is an act of love from a father. Their happy memories in “Enchanted Garden” might be replaced with sadness and despair. Due to these possible outcomes, I disagree with Stanley’s way in disclosing the news although he is desperate and helpless at that period. Something better could be carry out if he could seek help. However, his changes of parenting is good as it is the critical period where the children need more love rather than rules.