Presumptions

There are several forms of closure but all basically boil down to one thing.  Making peace.  Some spend a lifetime trying to uncover secrets of their past.  Others seek vengeance for a wrong done to them.  Still more seek completion, such as a in a painful breakup or divorce.  They will ask repeatedly why did this happen?  Why were they murdered?  Why did she leave me?

They will spend countless hours, which they will never get back asking why and trying to make sense of their tattered lives.  They will search for clues, form their own investigations, pull together all the resources needed.  All in the quest for why.

The truth is they may uncover the 'why' in all that.  Still they talk of closure as they move through the process.  They demand closure for the wrongs they have suffered.

Many years ago, I witnessed an execution.  I was rather struck with how simple the death was.  I had no real ties to the case and was only there in a supportive facility.  In other words, I was asked to attend.  After a member of the victim's family came to me, thanked me for being there and commented that they thought it would be different.  They believed they would feel better afterward, a relief.  Closure.  "Why" remained still unanswered.

Instead they slowly realized their loved one would not return.  They were in fact frozen in time at the age of their death.  A photograph in an album or hanging on a wall.

For real closure to come they needed to make peace with it.  It was not about forgetting or forgiveness, revenge. They had to learn to let go and accept what they could not change, instead focusing on moving forward in a meaningful way with their lives.  Only then did they find the closure they were seeking. It was just different than what they perceived it should be.