The five stages of grief applied to the weekend

“Our beautiful tree decided it was going to fall on our house.”

－ Kathy Lapoint, Gibraltar homeowner

Hello Downriver,

If you were among the tens of thousands of Downriver residents without power over the weekend — and had damage like Kathy Lapoint’s family — there’s little I can say to add to your experience.

But did you go through the equivalent of the five stages of grief like I did?

You know, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance?

(Of course, two more steps were added by psychologists to dive deeper into the feelings surrounding loss — but processing the loss power and some frozen food just doesn’t justify those extra steps.)

So let’s start with denial.

Late Thursday, after the storm warning came across the TV screen and I began watching local weather, my initial reaction was …

“It’s not going to happen here; I want to finish watching my program.”

Nevertheless, I opened the back door and monitored the weather first-hand, my official “weather spotter” card available if I needed to make a report.

At first, the wind was eerily calm; too calm, I thought — yet I remained defiant in my belief that nothing was going to happen.

Then the wind struck with all its fury, bending trees in everyone’s backyards, even twisting them — if that’s possible.

Within moments, the rains came, too, a downpour that momentarily obscured the extent of the wind’s power.

Power that at one point turned quite weird; a roaring sound that, much later, no doubt proved to be the makings of a tornado skipping over us and landing in Gibraltar or South Rockwood.

About the same time, over the rooftops, we could see flashes of red and blue — suggesting a familiar transformer was being attacked.

So much for denial; the storm was real.

And then the lights went out — just about 11 p.m. on Thursday.

And anger set in.

I simply couldn’t believe that in this day and age, electricity could be so fickle; that it could simply be off with the flip of a switch.

OK, bad example.

I just couldn’t believe that given the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve paid over the past five-plus decades hasn’t provided some modicum of electrical security.

Whose fault was that?

Couldn’t be me; I pay my bills on time every month; there must be someone else I can blame for my inconvenience.

I mean, I just missed the climax of that program I was watching.

(Ignore the fact that it was a recording I can watch later; that’s not the point.)

Oh, wait, I can blame the power company (the name of which must not be spoken).

Or maybe the damnable trees that give us life-saving oxygen.

I mean, the power lines in my neighborhood are underground, so the problem must lie elsewhere.

I must admit that my initial anger was tempered by the residual denial of the problem: I was holding out hope that the power would return any minute.

(Of course, every time we got a notice that free ice and water were being distributed, we knew things weren’t getting better any time soon.)

My anger replaced my denial as time wore on Thursday night — and was exacerbated the next morning when I couldn’t push a button for coffee.

It was at this point that bargaining ensued: Turn on the power, let me get a cup of coffee without exertion and I’ll absolve all of blame.

Instead, as that first full day of powerlessness continued, creativity took over — and I used our trusty teakettle to boil water (yay, gas and water continued to flow!) and then hand-pour it over the filter in our coffeemaker.

Then, using a lined carafe, we were able to keep the coffee kinda hot for an hour or so.

Then repeat.

By Saturday, however, bargaining for a working light bulb had evolved into depression, as nearly everything we took for granted was no longer available.

Little things — like manually opening and closing (and locking) the garage door, carrying a battery-power lantern in the bathroom, using battery-powered radios and listening to the drone of generators throughout the neighborhood — became our new reality.

In addition, we had to deal with downed landscaping — but nothing like the broken and fallen trees we saw in the region, some of which had damaged homes.

Still, it wasn’t all bad: We talked a lot, solving world problems and enjoying the lack of electronic distraction.

We did some reading by daylight — and went to bed earlier than I can remember.

Nevertheless, it was depressing that what had started out as a hopefully short blackout and a somewhat fun home camping event had evolved into something disruptive.

We knew we weren’t cut out for this in the long run — and hoped this wasn’t a trial run for something worse to come.

(Ironically, the program I had been watching was about a post-disaster small town dealing with little food, no water, power or order. Yikes!)

In addition, although we had two coolers keeping milk, orange juice, medications and cheeses (important stuff) cold, we lost everything in our chest freezer.

By Sunday, we also had tossed everything perishable in our refrigerator and things that had melted (oh, no, the ice cream!) in that freezer.

Which meant we’d arrived at the final step: acceptance.

It is what it is.

We began looking upon this minor disaster as a way to restock; we’d no longer have to dig through years-old frozen foods to find things, we thought — putting a positive spin on things; we could start with a clean slate, refrigerator, freezer, whatever.

I also cut the grass (gas mower), since I’d simply be adding to the pile of debris we’d cleaned up from around the yard.

I will admit, though, that lugging the rolling garbage can to the curb Sunday evening took a little more effort than usual: I never expected melted and thawed items could weigh so much.

By later Sunday, we were preparing to endure yet another day of powerlessness when — voila! — the lights came on.

After 67 hours, we were saved from creeping cavemanism.

All that was left was to empty the rest of the questionable items in the now-cooling refrigerator, clean out the coolers and reset clocks.

And reset clocks.

Yep, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I went through every step over the weekend.

Now, I’m back to push-button coffee — which is about the only thing worth accepting.

How about you?

•

In closing: Were you surprised last week when one of the GOP candidates for president said if elected, he’d definitely pardon citizen Trump?

I wasn’t: The Republicans have a track record of pardoning criminal presidents.

Which should automatically disqualify Vivek Ramaswamy from office.

Craig Farrand is a former managing editor of The News-Herald Newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected].