A Tough Question

As I mentioned yesterday, an old friend of the family has died.

This morning, after being unsuccessful in my attempt to call the home last night, my call went through and I reached the son of our friend, who is a couple of years older than I am.

I identified myself.

He was the only one there, he told me. His mother and his sister were out. Neither of us had mentioned his father's death, although he knew that was the reason for my call.

Then he asked me, "When does it stop hurting?"

The question caught me by surprise. I had to stop and think before I could answer.

This man remembers what our family went through when my mother died in a flash flood 13 years ago. He was there through all of it. So he knows I can speak from experience.

I wanted to give him some practical advice. I know he and the rest of his family are in pain right now.

And I know some of my readers have been through this kind of thing themselves. And others are going through it right now.

One of the things I took from the experience of losing my mother was that a lot of people spoke to me about closure, as if the death of a loved one was something you could come to terms with and then put behind you forever.

It's not that simple. At least, it wasn't that simple for me.

Now, I'll grant you, everyone has a different relationship with their parents. Not everyone is as fortunate as I was.

For some people, it may be possible to achieve closure, if their relationship with their mother and/or father left something to be desired.

But, in my case, I reached the conclusion that there really was no such thing as closure.

It's been more than 13 years now, and it still hurts, from time to time.

It hurts on the anniversary of my mother's death. It hurts on her birthday. It hurts on Christmas. And sometimes it hurts for seemingly no reason at all — except that something sparked a memory.

But it isn't the constant, aching kind of hurt that it was in the beginning.

It does get better over time. Without a doubt, the first year is the toughest. In that first year, you must go through all the milestones — the first birthday without that parent, the first Christmas without that parent, etc. It gets easier after that.

But, to answer my friend's question, I really don't believe the pain ever completely goes away. I believe you adjust and learn to live with the new reality.

I also learned that everyone has his or her own way of dealing with grief. The best thing anyone can do is let a grieving person grieve.

A good friend of mine lost his mother a few years ago. He told me in an e-mail that his significant other felt compelled to be around him more to help him deal with his grief. But she didn't understand, he told me, that he wanted to be left alone at times, to listen to his music and think about happy times with his mother.

Have you lost a parent?

What are your thoughts on closure?