Seeing the suffocating animals in the Gulf is making me want to leave the planet. The picture of the pelican gulping for air on the home page of nytimes.com was enough to give any who saw it a visceral feeling of what it would be like to be coated with oil so that it was impossible to breathe. Where do we put our grief from witnessing such suffering? How do we handle such loss?

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief as a way to help in the process of recovery from terrible loss. It is quite clear the geyser in the Gulf has me touching all the stages of grief — except acceptance, the fifth stage.

The first stage of grief is denial. This is the “this can’t be happening” stage. I’m right there, every time I think of the photo of the pelican, of the decimation of the Gulf Coast culture, livelihoods and ways of life.

Read the rest at HuffingtonPost.com : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annie-b-bond/grieving-for-the-gulf_b_603852.html