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She told me I was not ready for ‘closure’

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Somewhere between the tragedy and my last breath lies closure, apparently. Somewhere between the former and the latter, also lies grief. Somewhere at the dinner table sits me, confused.

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Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

What is closure? Why do I need to find it? Does it even exist? Or is it a consolation prize for ‘ending our grief’?

I am a grieving aunt. Still mourning for her nephew. His mum, who is my youngest sister, thinks everyone needs closure. She goes to all her nephews and nieces ‘giving them closure’. Shockingly my usually emotionally weak sister seems the strongest of us all, despite losing her son, and tells me she thinks I am not ready for closure.

Why is a grieving mother telling me where my grief is, in relation to hers and others?

Grief doesn’t have a full stop. It doesn’t have an endpoint. It moves with you as you try to move on with your life and it stays with you until your time is up.

So, what is closure?

According to Google, closure is ‘a comforting sense of finality or peace after a difficult event’. After a year of grieving, I am almost certain that our family…

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