Ever since Elisabeth Kübler-Ross published her 1969 book On Death and Dying, it has been widely accepted that there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The trouble is, this neat and tidy summary has often been interpreted as a logical way to navigate loss one step at a time, with the space to take each stage as it comes. Grief, however, is process that is as messy, ever-changing and personal as they get. And nothing can ever really prepare you for it.
For writer Leigh Shaw in the drama series Sorry For Your Loss, being widowed just a few years into her marriage was the last thing she imagined for her life, and discovering who she is again, in the midst of her pain, demands more of her than she ever expected.
The portrayal of widows on screen so often tends towards one of dependence and desperation, but Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision, Avengers: Age of Ultron) brings a realness to Leigh’s character that allows her to be so much more. Her fierce independence means she is very much trying to be a person working her way through grief, not a person defined by it, but this distinction isn’t always clear to those around her.
As we meet Leigh just three months after the death of her husband Matt (Mamoudou Athie), she is what you would expect any young person to be after their life has just been derailed in this way: lost. She goes through the motions of each day, working as an instructor in her family’s fitness business, attending grief support (partly for the help, partly for the free doughnuts) and trying to hold onto some fragment of her former self, a task made more difficult since moving back in with her mother (Janet McTeer) and sister Jules (Kelly Marie Tran). She can be selfish, short-tempered and at times completely irrational, but at no point do you feel you could judge her for any of it.
‘Sorry For Your Loss’. Source: SBS
“I read that if your spouse dies, it feels like losing $308,780 a year which sounded crazy to me at first,” she tells her grief group. “But then I started to think about what it would feel like to lose $308,780 a year, and I think it would feel like a problem you can never fix. My husband being dead feels like the same kind of impossible thing.”
It’s made all the more impossible by the lingering presence of Matt’s brother Danny (Jovan Adepo) who gives the impression that grief is a competitive sport and one he is determined to win. There has always been tension between the two, and an apparent dislike that is obvious from the outset, but Matt’s death has a way of magnifying every emotion.
Elizabeth Olsen and Kelly Marie Tran in ‘Sorry For Your Loss’. Source: Distributor
Leigh is determined to remind anyone that will listen that just because she and Danny have experienced a shared loss doesn’t mean they suddenly have anything in common. That said, grief still has a funny way of forcing people together in spite of their differences, whether they like it or not.
It also has a way of making people forget the reality of their past, both good and bad. If you’ve ever listened to a eulogy and struggled to recognise the person you knew within it, chances are you’re not alone. As time passes, Leigh is forced to accept that her marriage was far from perfect, and there was a side to Matt that she never knew, but also learns that admitting all this in no way minimises what she is going through.
Once she understands that it’s not so much a process as a cycle, Leigh begins to let her grief take a backseat on occasion, and makes space for the humour, chaos and normalcy of everyday life again. Her best friend Drew (Zack Robidas) encourages her to pursue her love for writing and return to the advice column that was her passion project before Matt’s death, and through reflecting on her own experience, Leigh discovers that she can be something for others in a way that she never could before.
A series about death and what follows might not sound like an enticing watch, but each 30-minute episode manages to share in Leigh’s journey of grief without letting it dominate.
Mamoudou Athie as Matt Greer in ‘Sorry For Your Loss’. Source: Distributor
Sorry For Your Loss traverses the ups and downs of life after loss in its various forms, highlighting the freedom that can come with accepting and leaning in to the emotion of it, and shattering much of the stigma that surrounds bereavement. As we come to know her, we realise that Leigh could be any one of us, and it’s this, above anything else about the series, that will move and inspire.
Season 2 of Sorry For Your Loss starts with a double episode Saturday 7 May at 11.05 pm on SBS VICELAND. Seasons 1 and 2 are also streaming at .
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