Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "The Myth of Closure Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change," by Pauline Boss.
My point is this: Continuing to use the term “closure” perpetuates the myth that losses and grief have a prescribed time for ending—or never starting—and that it’s emotionally healthier to close the door on suffering than to face it and learn to live with it.
Research shows that we do better to live with grief than to deny it or close the door on it. Our task now, after a time of so much suffering, is to acknowledge our losses, name them, find meaning in them, and let go of the quest for closure. Instead of searching for closure, we search for meaning and new hope.
Ambiguous loss is neither a disorder nor a syndrome, but simply a framework to help us understand the complexity and nuances of loss and how to live with it. My focus is on building resilience to live with and thrive despite a loss that can’t be clarified. Here, resilience means increasing your tolerance for ambiguity.
Neither ambiguity nor loss are popular topics in our culture, but now, due to the pandemic, we’re immersed in both. Ambiguous loss is a loss that remains unclear and without official verification or immediate resolution, which may never be achieved. The people we love can be physically gone but kept psychologically present—or the opposite, physically present but psychologically gone. We feel our grief, but because no death has occurred or been verified, it is often criticized as premature. Ambiguous losses then lead to a disenfranchised grief because others do not see the loss as credible and worthy of grief.
Since the pandemic, my new thinking about ambiguous loss has gone even beyond nuances in individual and family levels to a societal and even global application of this lens. Since COVID-19 hit, we saw the murder of George Floyd recorded on video by a teenaged girl on the way to the grocery store. While this murder took place in Minneapolis, the world saw what she filmed, and it brought to light again centuries-old anger and grief from the Black community and others—the unresolved cruelty and losses from slavery and the systemic racism that is still with us today. I received a flood of inquiries about whether such societal losses were ambiguous losses. My answer was yes. Losses never acknowledged remain ambiguous and unresolved, so the trauma is passed down across the generations and can erupt years later.
When I lost Dad and Zachary, the pain and suffering from the experience forced me to stare at the closed door. I couldn’t believe what had happened; there were still conflicts between my father and me, and the disbelief that my brother was gone was too overwhelming. … However, as the ten-year anniversary approaches, I am grateful that the energy that flows between us continues, not on a physical level, but now as a highly emotional and spiritual experience. These relationships have actually continued to evolve, especially with my father. Forgiveness has occurred between my father and me and acceptance that my brother was killed at such a young age happened. Forgiveness and acceptance. These two acts have expanded my heart in ways that I could not possibly imagine. I now have the ability to empathize with others who are suffering and genuinely be in the moment with them. People ask, “Have you found closure in their deaths?” Honestly, no. However, I have accepted what was—what has happened, and what will be. Because in the end, I actually have NO control over other people’s destinies, but I can continue to accept and grow in mine.
Finally, Elaine Pinderhughes made one other point that I never forgot and want to emphasize today. She wrote, “It is unethical and irresponsible to medicate and therapize a population suffering from such long-standing vulnerability without also removing its source. This means that white America must give up the benefits of racism.”
Hard words to hear. There is much more then to learn, not about the problem—we know what that is now—but about how to end such systemic racism so that we can be a more equitable and compassionate human family.
When my husband died, these questions became real for me. A decade ago, when he needed care, I shifted my identity as solely his wife to also being his caregiver. Now that he has died, I need to shift again. My identity now is neither wife nor caregiver, but widow. This new way of being feels strange to me, like putting on a heavy coat that doesn’t quite fit. It will take some time to build a new identity. I will get there.
Hopefully, you will find some meaning and new hope in what you have lost during this time of loss and change. Instead of closure, balance your sadness and grief with some joy and laughter. As you venture out into the world in a new way now, know that your bonds to those you lost can continue. No need to forget. No need for closure. Honor what you had and move forward. Tell your story to the next generation, but include your strengths as well as your sorrows, your resilience as well as your despair. Keep going. The slow climb back to some semblance of normalcy will not be easy, but you can do it with the support of others and a boost in your tolerance for ambiguity. To ease your anxiety, embrace the paradox of absence and presence and use both/and thinking.
I wrote this book because Americans really like the term “closure”; they say things like: The parents will have closure once their child’s body is found; without a funeral, a widow can have no closure; or now that the murderer has gone to prison or been executed, the family has closure. Not so! The myth is that healthy people find closure, but the truth is that resilient people live well without it.
