My dear Carol, you leave the most wonderful comments, posts in their own rights.

My opinion: grief does not go in stages. It comes in blasts, in whiffs, in moments. Not stages. That's western medical hooey talk. What kind of person thinks they can pin grief down, make it manageable? The author must have never had such a loss to have the audacity to write all that. It serves only to make some, if not most, of us feel we have failed, yet again, in some way. Throw that crap out.

The most helpful thing anyone said to me while Niko was dying was this:

you don't need to talk about his dying, or have any agenda for conversations. Let him lead it.

He told us all that he loved us, we told him the same, and that was enough! There was no need for apologies, or explanations, or forgiveness.

We missed out on all the conversations we could have had.

Kelly led her dying process. She went inside herself. Niko did much the same. I know you had at least one conversation with her that was a loving leave-taking. Why need more that one? Every death steals possibilites from all of us. Every moment steals possibilities from us.