Wendy,

Please don't be afraid of 'closure'. It is only a word and it really means different thing to different people. For me personally it meant coming to grips with the fact that my parents had really died and it wasn't just a horrible dream. Grieving is the part that cleanses.

We had a ceremony for Mum and Dad's ashes. We went to a cliff top on the coast to scatter their ashes. It was something they really wanted. It was hard to do, but wonderful as well. Just writing this is bringing tears to my eyes. It's been four years now but it still isn't easy.

I did feel some sense of closure with this ceremony, but only time seems to heal the raw wounds of losing someone you love so dearly. Please allow yourself to grieve when, where and how you want to. There is no right or wrong way.

Dee.

We buried my Dad's ashes last May, 5 months after he passed the previous December. We had a funeral service in December, then we kind of went into a holding pattern until we buried his ashes in May. Knowing that there were things still undone, made that period of time between December and May more difficult, I think. It seemed that I was able to move on once it was over. Yes it was painful. It felt like we had 2 funerals, but things got better after that. Maybe that is what "closure" means.

"So many things have happened in my life in the last three months that I have wanted to share with her and that I needed her for."

So tell her! There is a tradition in Mexico, on the "Day of the Dead", where everyone goes to the cemeteries and cleans the grave sites, decorates them with flowers, and brings the dead up to date on what's happening to the family. Babies and new brides are introduced, graduations announced, pictures of the new house can be left on the grave ... it's celebrating the continuity of life.

Wendy, how did you fair with the burial?
To me, there is no such thing as "closure". As far as I'm concerned, when we lose someone whom we love so very much and who has been with us all of our lives, we may accept the fact that they are gone, but there is just not ever a "closing". We don't wipe those people or those memories out of our lives. They are there forever and we WANT them to be.
The only way that I can see "closure" as being part of the grieving process is when there is certain unresolved issues that a person needs to work out and solve in his/her own mind regarding the person who has left. That is closure, to me. But, mourning the loss of a loved one is a lifetime thing, I think.
Lu

Here is a link that might be useful: Christin Cosby Memorial Web Site

I'm with you Lulie, there is no such thing as "closure"----like you are done with the process. Things change, but there is always something big that is just missing. It becomes more tolerable with time.

Thanks for asking, no one else really understands how hard it was. I spent the night before on the internet looking for a poem that fit. I did find one that was perfect but I was too choked up to read it so my husband did it for me.

On the way to the cemetary I stopped at a local florist to get three roses to put in the grave and after I paid for them the woman asked me if I wanted them wrapped and I replied that I didn't as they were going on a gravesite. As I turned to walk out the door she handed me a big bouquet of flowers and said 'here, keep these ones for you' What a nice thought.

I don't think that there will ever be a day that I won't have the ache in my heart. Our relationship was just too special.

Thanks again for asking.. it helps to know that someone cares.

10-6-2006...2 days ago I had gone through another day in my new world. Realizing that the date that day was 10-6-2006.3 months since i found my baby,my blue sky guy,gone...Just like that,laying on the floor,just as naked as the day he started his wonderful life on this earth.(forgive my blunt description) but all these images are relevant to my understanding of where my love is. death was never confusing to me before. One of my Favorite pasttimes is going to cemeteries taking pictures and reading every headstone.Scut would accompany me he loved what i loved, even my need to stop at every cemetery we passed. he would find a comfortable place or sit in the truck as i took pictures hoping to put together a book someday of all the cemeteries we had stopped at in Texas,Arkansas,Oklahoma,& Georgia. See My baby was a lineman.He always worked out of town or out of state.Anyway 11 yrs of him coming home every Thursday or Friday or Us (my young daughter and i) leaving on our ritualistic adventure to see the man we had grown to love & respect so deeply has ended. Without warning, the man I thought I would be buried beside was now laying on the floor in front of me.No time to hold him and cry. Had to wake his mother and tell her her son had died. Long story short his family took over and I have no where to visit,no where to grieve,He is everywhere I look but I cant find him.he is every moon every tree every cloud but I cant call him cant touch him.I ask god to let him come hold my hand one more time he doesnt.Will the answer to my heartache ever come will I ever understand where my baby went.

Wendy forgive me.I did try to follow how to use website.But both times i found websites to channel my grieving I was in such pain i didnt understand.Now I do.O.K. sweetie the way i see it when someone that is so a part of us dies there is no closure there are only new steps everyday of figuring out how to go through that new day without them.See i was looking for closure too,thats why i wrote my message about my loss in your follow up section,I saw its been 3 months and it so grabbed me because everyday i am trying to figure out how to deal with my scutter,s (his nickname Scut)death. So in writing to you just now and by things that I've done over the last 3 mo's since he died I dont think there is closure.There are just new daily steps we take to learn how to get through that day on the calendar that last year we were with these people that we are not with this year.I personally will never have closure because alove like your mother or my scut isnt meant to go away we just have to take new daily steps. I dont know you but I love you.Be strong. Please write to me,Smiling dulls the pain for amoment.