According to Kübler-Ross, the most common order of emotional reactions in preparing for death is "denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance."
The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a piece of the system that makes up our figuring out how to live with the one we lost. They are devices to enable us to outline and distinguish what we might feel. In any case, they are not stops on some direct course of events in distress.