Christians Caring and Sharing

It's Time to Bring "Closure" to a Close

by: Harrop~Providence Journal ~ 61 Winnipeg. Canada

Talk show host Larry King asked a woman who had lost two grandchildren in the Oklahoma City Bombing whether the conviction of Timothy McVey brought "closure to her pain."

Jannie Coverdale set him straight. Her sorrow will never end,

she said. She'll learn to live with her reality, yes, but she will forever ache.

Closure, closure, closure.

That word is being hurled at the bombing victims now that someone has been convicted of that crime. Closure has become a fashionable term used by some therapist and picked up by the media. It refers to belief that certain events allow the individual to put the lid on an emotional crisis and move on.

But there is no real closure in grief, and loss. Ignorance over the nature of grief leads some to assume that the jagged pain will fade over time, like an old melon disintegrating in a compost pile.

Well meaning people may hold our closure as a means of bucking-up the person to torment. See, life goes on. You will feel better. However, questions about closure can take a cruel, accusatory air. They imply that the hurt person is dragging things out.

The prospect of closure may be attractive but it's not possible. It is true that those who suffer will learn to again enjoy themselves. The clichés about the going on are accurate. But life will not be like it was before, Nor would they want it to be.

Grief preserves the memory of the loss. It also serves as a link to the person who has disappeared. Outsiders to grief may think it kind to encourage those who mourn to forget.

The opposite is true.

The great belief of grieving people is that by letting go of their sorrow they sometime will be loose from the ones who died.

Human emotions cannot be put neatly into storage.

Boxes close. Doors shut. Journalists might try to tidy a story by surrounding it with bookends. But the suffering caused by murder will not stay put in a trunk.

Without doubt, most victims' lives will eventually settle back into a steady routine, but there will be no return to normal, defined as life before the event.

It can't be done.