Mainly on closure and moving on

A close friend���s father died a couple of days back. At the same time there was a party planned for today by another common friend. Second friend was now in a fix. Should she go through with it? Like, was it too close to the grief? Would it appear insensitive?

Should it be brought up at all? Anyway, in the end, a vague kind of ���common sense��� prevailed and it was consensually decided that perhaps everyone could get together after a few days or weeks had passed and the bereaved had attained some sort of closure.

Now, there���s a word we need to get a good handle on these days as far as terminal loss is concerned. Closure. Earlier this used to be a largely passive, automatic and understood process. Some loved one died or left us heart-dead and it took us ��� what? ��� a few weeks, months or even years maybe before we got back into the stride of everyday life again.

The system worked for thousands of years because it had to if people had to do what they had to in order to carry on existing. It was a way of easing back, largely unnoticed, into the world of, well, partying for instance. An analogue experience if you will.

Of late, however, it���s been digitised and made proactive. For instance, we read or hear of people saying that catching and convicting the person responsible for a murder will provide both the victim and those left living, with closure.

Then, it���s been defined: closure is the state of experiencing an emotional conclusion to a difficult life event. After that, it���s been scaled. A person with a high need for closure prefers order and predictability and is decisive and close minded. He or she also feels discomfort with ambiguity.

Someone rating low on need for closure expresses more ideational fluidity and emits more creative acts. Finally, it���s been assigned a time frame ��� not so much in terms of discrete units but as something that has to definitely lead up to ���moving on��� as the fixed end point of grieving.

In the light of such complexity, perhaps it might be a good idea if we could start having our collective closures as soon as some loved person was born. For one thing it would give everyone around almost a lifetime to get prepared.

Also, since we love ourselves the most, it might be an even better idea to initiate the process of closure on our own lives from the moment we understand the concept of death ��� say, at some adolescent rite of passage. After all, we���re the only ones who will actually be moving on.