Writing from Wayne and Jamie.

In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross published On Death and Dying. She described five emotional responses she observed in terminally ill patients: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The book was groundbreaking. It gave language to something that had been unspeakable.

But it was never about bereavement. It was about the experience of dying, not the experience of being left behind.

Somewhere along the way, those five stages migrated. They became the dominant model for understanding grief in popular culture, in hospitals, in churches, and in therapist offices. People were told they would move through stages in order, arrive at acceptance, and be healed.

That is not what the research shows.

In the decades since, grief researchers like Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut developed the Dual Process Model, which describes grief as an oscillation between confronting loss and rebuilding daily life. William Worden reframed grief as active work, not passive stages. Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman, and Steven Nickman demonstrated that maintaining a continuing bond with the deceased is healthy and normal.

None of this is fringe science. These are the models taught in graduate programs and cited in peer-reviewed journals. But they have not reached the communities that need them most.

That is what Live and Grieve is for. We took the best of what contemporary research says and built a 52-week, facilitator-led, community-based program that meets people where they are. Not with a checklist. Not with a timeline. With presence, structure, and the conviction that grief deserves better than what most people are getting.

Wayne and Jamie Simms are the founders of Tri-Pillars Studio and creators of the Live and Grieve™ program.