Over the past six years, whenever a well-meaning friend said something inappropriate with
respect to George's death, I would try to focus on the intent of the comment instead of the
comment itself. After all, I've felt worst when it seemed people were trying to avoid saying
anything, as if he'd never existed. Wouldn't it be overly sensitive and critical of those who at
least said something?

So when a relative told me three years ago that she hoped I was approaching "closure" in my
grieving for George, I tried to respond graciously. In fact, mild irritation was what I felt. First,
"closure" struck me as one of those annoyingly trendy words that came out of the psychobabble of the self-help craze. I'd never even heard the word used in that context before George died. More important, although her words were ostensibly sympathetic, they carried an underlying message of impatience: "OK," she seemed to be saying, "it's time to get over it." Was I being overly sensitive? Probably, I thought.

At a recent meeting of our Compassionate Friends chapter, I saw otherwise. A mother mentioned
how much the word "closure" bothered her, and everyone jumped right in to agree. The "c word," it turned out, pushed all our buttons.

We understood the uneasiness in the presence of pain that makes people want to wish away our
grief. But we resented the implication of failure or self-absorption if we didn't adhere to a recovery schedule.

In a newspaper column about the so-called "healing process" of the families of the Oklahoma
City bombing victims, Ellen Goodman wrote that the media coverage suggested 'death is
something to be dealt with, that loss is something to get over - according to a prescribed
emotional timetable." She recalled a personal experience of her own: "At a Christmas party, a
man offered up a worried sigh about a widowed mutual friend. 'It's been two years,' he said, 'and
she still hasn't achieved closure.' The words pegged her as an under-achiever who failed the
required course in Mourning 201, who wouldn't graduate with her grief class."

We do, in our own individual ways, gradually get better at bearing our loss. Mainly, the pain
simply softens with the passage of time.

George stays with me in the way he continues to influence the choices I make, in how I relate to
his brother, in how I live my life. He stays with me in the happy memories he blessed me with.
Sometimes, too, there's sadness, regret and, yes, pain. It's a living presence and I want it to last
forever.

That's what's denied by that presumptuous word, "closure." Let's scrap it.

~David Pelligrin
TCF Honolulu Chapter
From the TCF Atlanta Daily Newsletter-1/10/05