By VICTOR S. SIERPINA
I recently read an article by a cancer physician who argued against the issue of insisting on or expecting emotional “closure” when someone you love dies. This is a term often used when folks are going through the grieving process. Closure is considered to be a normal point of transition to tidy up our lives after the heartache and tears.
From his experience with many cancer patients and their families, this physician pointed out that there really is no such thing as finalizing and distancing yourself from someone who has died. It doesn’t matter whether it is an expected outcome, like a lingering cancer diagnosis, or a sudden cardiac event or accident. For those of us left behind, the death of a child, parent or friend is never something we can just “get over.”
The process of grief is something we all approach on our own terms, at our own level of consciousness and our own level of understanding. The described stages of grief are: shock, emotional pain, depression and loneliness, physical distress, panic, guilt, resentment and anger, resistance, hope and, ultimately, acceptance of our new reality.
Yet, we don’t ever need to feel we must have a closure on our grief. We grow through it and grow from the grief process while respecting our relationship and honoring those who are gone. One way we manage is to erect memorials, cemetery monuments, hold family traditions that remind us to respect those who have passed on.
We are having an event in my family homestead in Phoenix this upcoming weekend to celebrate the life and death of my parents, Victor and Helen. Dad died a month after Ike hit our island. His final hospice days were blessed and peaceful as I shuttled frequently between Phoenix and Galveston. We were recovering from devastation of our home, UTMB and more. My mom died five years before he did after a fall and head injury because of her Parkinsonism. He often said he was ready to join his wife of 57 years in the afterlife. This was their time to be together again.
I do not think we ever have closure on such momentous life events. In fact, they become part of who we are, our timeline. I still have a dad-shaped hole in my heart and another for my mom. They are gone, I have moved on. But closure? I appreciate the richness and wisdom they brought to my life, but by no means am I willing to let go of their memories, however painful it may be to look back.
So yes, we can grieve the loss of loved ones, of homes, property, jobs. You have survived such momentous events and grown from them. How many folks do you know who talk about “before Hurricane Ike and after Ike” as a major reference to life going forward?
These kinds of life events have a lasting impact and it is important to maintain compassion for ourselves, to acknowledge the lasting scars but also the blessings that such grief helping us mature into fully human beings.
Closure? Never forgetting, yet standing up in our lives day to day may be the most respectful way to honor those who have passed. Their transition is our transformation.
Suffering is the sandpaper of our life. It does its work of shaping us. Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.
Dr. Victor S. Sierpina is the WD and Laura Nell Nicholson Family Professor of Integrative Medicine and Professor of Family Medicine at UTMB.