We don’t have adequate, broadly-shared social scripts and frameworks to talk about loss and healing.
Contrary to popular belief, the “five stages of grief” model does not insist that there are 5 brief, linear stages to move through toward healing. But (the incorrect interpretation of!) this model is probably the most familiar—or only?—framework for healing that most of us can point to. We may personally know that grief and loss are complex and meandering, but most of our daily social contexts — work, school, social clubs — expect people experiencing loss to “bounce back” quickly