The Kübler-Ross Grief Model

This is a follow-up post I have been dreading to write.

Two Saturday's ago I was working on my MacBook (codename: Judy) when it unexpectedly froze. No big deal but not that common. When I restarted Judy, I was treated to a flashing folder icon with a question mark inside of it. Hmmm... with what little IT I know (just enough to be dangerous) I knew my Mac was looking for it's start-up disk. After a trip to STEM to pick up my Leopard CD (that's Mac's latest operating system for those who don't know and care), Judy told me she was no longer there.

Yea, I don't get it either.

Next step was to call up my friend Aaron "Friendly Stegosaurus" Hintgen. Being he's an Apple Certified technician, he'd know what to do. He told me to bring it to church and he'd look at there. After taking out Judy's hard drive and putting it in his laptop, he gave me the bad news.

"I hope you backed your stuff up, cause she's not going to make it."

Ugh. Let the Kübler-Ross Model begin:


Stage #1: Denial
I believed Stego but I wasn't going to give up yet. There just had to be a way the data could be extracted. Maybe he didn't all the necessary equipment? Maybe there some was some other way, some other "tricks" to try?

This is where my prayer started picking up in frequency. I knew God could bring back my data. But would he get more glory by doing so? I knew whatever answer God had, it was my job to give Him praise.

Monday at 11:16 AM, the Genius Bar confirmed Stego's diagnosis. Judy was dead. The only options left were:

1. Replace Judy's hard drive for free right there. (Gotta love Apple's "AppleCare Protection Plan".)
2. Send Judy's corpse to the same organization that recovers files for the Department of Defense. Yea THE Department of Defense. Problem with that is we're looking at $2000.

Number 1 it is. I left Southdale's Apple Store with basically, a brand new computer.

Stage #2: Anger
Angry at myself. There was no one to blame but myself. With the troubleshooting work I do at STEM, I should have been the one person to push backups and here it was my computer to die. Stupid.

Stage #3: Bargaining
This is the one stage I don't think I went through. Was I supposed to bargain with God? Instead of entertaining stage three, my personality trait leans heavily toward stage four...

Stage #4: Depression
Ah yes, the "D word". The deceptive friend who promises comfort and delivers death. Depression. I've had enough of the D word to know I'm an easy target. This time, I let the Holy Spirit do His work. (Please note, I'm not saying all you have to do is pray and you have a quick fix for depression.)

I knew how I've handled tough news in the past and even when I knew it was coming, that "deceptive friend" was right there, holding out his hand, ready for me to grab hold. This time, I wasn't focused on my situation but God. God would get so much more glory if I relied on Him and when people asked how I was doing, I'd get to tell them honestly "God had not answered my prayers the way I wanted so His way must be better than mine." God gets the glory. (Please also note, this is not the way I've handled situations in the past. I don't want to come across as self righteous. God is righteous, not me.)

Stage #5: Acceptance
Even though I have accepted the fact Judy is gone and *Galvatron has taken her place, that doesn't make it any easier. The reason this post was so difficult to write was it would bring to memory some of the hundreds and, dare I say, thousands of freelance hours lost, along with the pictures of Brevin. Gone. All of it. Thankfully the world doesn't revolve around me and most of what was lost can be redone.

--

The lessons I hope those of you reading take away from my loss is PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, backup your valuable information and in EVERY situation, seek to give glory to God.

—b


*Galvatron: is a reincarnation, if you will, of the Transformer, Megatron. I choose the name of Galvatron for this computer because even though it's new and will eventually harbor some of the same stuff as Judy, it will never be the original.

...and yes, I am a nerd.