Closure Is Over-rated

It’s been a difficult time for our church community the last while; we’ve had several deaths.  After a recent memorial service, I spoke with someone who asked me what I thought about closure. This person defined closure as the end of grief and moving on with life.  I offered my response and we had a good conversation.

My opinion of closure is that it is a myth.  It is related to the many myths of our society that demand happy endings, answering all questions, or having things tied in a neat bow.  Closure usually implies that something is tied off and set aside as being complete.  In my opinion, grief at the death of a loved one or grief that comes with a serious loss never gets tied off in the way that closure implies.

My father died over 30 years ago and to this day I still grieve.  It isn’t a debilitating, crushing grief, but his loss still affects me today.  We are human beings who feel and remember.  We can’t package up those memories and feelings that are painful and put them inside a box and close the box.

One of the privileges of my vocation is that people talk to me about their grief.  A common challenge that grieving people face is that they feel constrained to grieve only for a short while and then seek closure.  However, when we don’t grieve for an adequate period, we can begin to repress our feelings of grief; when we pass some threshold of what society sets as a grieving period, we begin to worry that other people will think we aren’t strong and then often we begin to pretend that we are fine.

Telling people that closure is over-rated and that everyone grieves in their own way and takes whatever time is necessary can often lead to an opening of the floodgates—a good thing.  Tears flow and stories come, and people feel free to talk and let their bottled-up feelings out.

Closure implies that there are no open question, that everything is solved.  As a liberal, progressive Christian, I follow Jesus of Nazareth who raised questions and invited reflection.  Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, once said, “… the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”  Life is messier when living the questions, but it is more real.  We are more real.  We are more human.

When you experience loss, take whatever time you need to grieve, and grieve your own way.  Don’t worry about closure; it’s over-rated anyway.  Live your way into the answer of love and that will sustain you.  And seek out help if you feel overwhelmed.