It is important to feel the anger without judging it, without

Host: The hospital corridor stretched long and silent, bathed in that pale, merciless light that neither comforted nor healed. The smell of antiseptic hung heavy in the air, mingled with the quiet hum of distant machines and the faint rhythm of unseen heart monitors.

A single window at the end of the hall revealed the world outside — rain falling slow and cold against the glass, the city beyond blurred and indifferent.

In the small waiting room, two figures sat — Jack and Jeeny. Between them, a paper cup of coffee gone cold. On the chair beside Jeeny lay a thin, well-worn book: On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The page was open to the quote she had underlined in ink:

“It is important to feel the anger without judging it… Life is unfair. Death is unfair. Anger is a natural reaction to the unfairness of loss.”

Host: The words seemed to linger in the sterile air, vibrating against the silence like a faint echo of all that could not be said.

Jeeny: (softly) “It’s strange, Jack. I never thought anger could feel like a kind of grief. It used to feel so... dirty. Something to hide. But now—”

Jack: “Now it’s all that’s left.”

Host: His voice was low, hoarse, the kind of voice that comes after days of no sleep and too much reality. His hands were clasped, knuckles pale.

Jeeny: “She says not to judge it. To just let it live. But it feels like it’s living through me, not with me.”

Jack: “That’s what anger does. It moves in like a squatter and refuses to leave. You feed it silence, it grows teeth.”

Host: A nurse passed quietly, her footsteps soft as the seconds she carried away. Outside the door, the sound of distant crying rose and fell, fragile as the rain.

Jeeny: “You ever feel like screaming at someone who’s already gone? Like... you want to tell them they had no right to leave you with the mess?”

Jack: “All the time.”

Host: He leaned back, his eyes tracing the ceiling, as if the answers were written in the cracks above.

Jack: “When my father died, I broke a chair. Just... snapped it in half. My mother thought I’d gone mad. But it wasn’t madness. It was physics. There’s too much inside — it has to go somewhere.”

Jeeny: “Did it help?”

Jack: “For five seconds. Then I realized I’d broken the only thing that still worked in the house.”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “That’s the thing about anger. It destroys the wrong things.”

Host: The rain picked up, harder now, like fingers drumming on glass. Jeeny turned her face toward the window, the reflection of her eyes merging with the grey outside.

Jeeny: “I keep thinking — what’s the point of feeling it if it doesn’t fix anything?”

Jack: “Maybe it’s not supposed to fix. Maybe it’s supposed to prove something’s broken.”

Host: She looked at him then — really looked. His eyes were tired, but steady; there was an honesty in them that didn’t comfort, but grounded her all the same.

Jeeny: “You sound like her. Kübler-Ross. ‘Feel the anger without finding meaning.’”

Jack: “Meaning is the last thing grief wants. People rush to explain it because they can’t bear to sit in it. But sometimes pain doesn’t need a reason. It just is.”

Jeeny: “That’s hard for me. I was raised to make sense of everything. Find the lesson. The growth. The silver lining.”

Jack: “That’s how they sell suffering — wrap it in philosophy so it doesn’t look like chaos.”

Host: His words were sharp, but not cruel — the voice of a man who had made peace with the absence of peace.

Jeeny: “So what do you do, Jack, when the anger feels bigger than the grief?”

Jack: “You give it a room. Not the whole house — just a room. You let it scream in there. You visit sometimes. But you don’t live there.”

Host: Her eyes shimmered — not with tears, but with the effort of restraint.

Jeeny: “Do you ever stop being angry?”

Jack: “You don’t stop. It just... changes shape. It turns into something you can hold without bleeding.”

Host: A long silence fell between them. The kind that feels less like absence and more like acknowledgment. The clock on the wall ticked — steady, indifferent.

Jeeny: “It’s not fair.”

Jack: “No. It never was.”

Jeeny: “And yet, people still tell you everything happens for a reason.”

Jack: “That’s because they’re afraid of randomness. A reason sounds prettier than the truth.”

Host: The light above them buzzed faintly, its hum filling the small room. Jeeny reached for her cup, found it empty, and set it back down with a small sigh.

Jeeny: “When my brother died, I remember thinking — how dare the world keep moving? How dare the traffic go on, the shops stay open, the news keep talking about politics as if nothing happened?”

Jack: “Because the world doesn’t stop for anyone, Jeeny. That’s what makes the anger so raw — it’s the only thing that feels alive when everything else doesn’t.”

Host: She nodded slowly, the truth cutting deep but clean.

Jeeny: “So, you think anger is… holy?”

Jack: “No. But it’s honest. And honesty is close enough.”

Host: A flicker of lightning outside — pale blue through the window. The storm had arrived.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why she says not to judge it. Because judgment kills honesty. You start asking, ‘Should I feel this?’ instead of just feeling.”

Jack: “Exactly. You start performing grief instead of living it. Like putting flowers on a grave you’re too scared to touch.”

Jeeny: (whispers) “I touched the bed after she died. It was still warm. I thought if I held onto that warmth long enough, I could stop the cold from coming. But it came anyway.”

Host: Jack said nothing. He reached across the small table and placed his hand gently over hers — a gesture that said everything words could not.

Jack: “You can’t stop the cold, Jeeny. You just learn how to breathe inside it.”

Jeeny: “And the anger?”

Jack: “You let it burn until it becomes light.”

Host: The rain softened again, the storm retreating as quietly as it had come. The room was the same — sterile, humming, endless — yet something had shifted. The silence was no longer heavy, but human.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what healing really is — not the absence of anger, but learning to live without trying to justify it.”

Jack: “Yeah. Maybe the world doesn’t need your forgiveness, just your honesty.”

Host: Outside, the first dawn light began to appear through the glass — faint, fragile, the color of mercy. The clouds parted enough to let a thin line of gold break through, spilling over the hospital walls, over their faces, over the table between them.

Jeeny: “You know, for a long time, I thought anger meant I was failing to grieve properly.”

Jack: “No, Jeeny. It means you’re still human enough to care that the world isn’t fair.”

Host: They sat there for a while, saying nothing more. The coffee went cold, the book lay open, the light grew slowly brighter.

The world, unfair and unhealed, continued outside the window — but inside that quiet corner, the anger had softened into something else. Not peace, not closure — but understanding.

And in that small, trembling understanding, the truth of Kübler-Ross’s words finally lived:

That to feel anger without judgment is to begin forgiving life — not because it is fair, but because it goes on.