Perhaps because life has resumed. I have kept at it. Two weeks, then three. I listen to the submarine thudding of my day-to-day. I do nothing but go to work, come back from work. I keep to the same path around the house, the desensitized neutral areas: the corridor, the bathroom mat, the hard spaces in front of the soft furniture. Floating in the bath for an hour, my body not touching the sides, mooring myself at the rickety dressing table, handling the hairbrush, the body creams, dabbing on foundation thicker than normal. Everything that is him is still here. I’ve just taught myself to ignore it. The booklet seems to think that’s wrong. I carry on reading.

As an example we will apply the five stages to a small traumatic event some of us might have experienced: The Broken Mobile Phone! It’s 15:10 and you are awaiting a very important phone call at 15:15. It’s an interview for your dream job. All of a sudden, the screen on your mobile phone freezes, becoming unresponsive.

1. DENIAL – You quickly try to restart your phone, several times, trying any combination of buttons, until you manage to switch it off and on again. When the screen turns black, however, it doesn’t come back on. You try several other things, nothing works.

2. ANGER – ‘F⋆⋆k you, phone! I should have got an upgrade!’ Did you just throw your phone against the wall? Now the screen is cracked. It looks like you’ve really broken it for good. ‘I hate these useless smartphones! Smartphones are the ruin of this world!’

3. BARGAINING – It’s 15:12: Realizing that you’re really about to miss your call, you beg your phone to start again, ‘Oh please, phone, start again, please please please. I’ll get you serviced, I’ll even buy you a new cover!’

4. DEPRESSION – It’s 15:16. They’ve probably already called by now. You won’t be considered for the position you’ve been dreaming of. This is it: you have lost the opportunity of a lifetime, all because of a stupid mobile phone.

5. ACCEPTANCE – ‘OK, the phone is dead.’ You have missed your call. You’d better get online and email the company. But before you do that, you must make sure to calm down, so that you can clearly explain your technical difficulties and get your interview rescheduled.

The example depicted here is deliberately trivial: ‘a micro-example’, which demonstrates only a small part of the process we all go through several times a day. Grieving can be triggered by the smallest things: a dead car battery, a favourite dish dropped off a menu, a house move, a break-up, the loss of a pet …