Is Closure REALLY What You Want?

     In life, we have experiences that shape us into the people we are at this very moment. Good or bad, we learn lessons. And it's up to us to accept the lessons into our lives and become our "best self" or stow the knowledge for later contemplation. So what's up with this thing referred to as closure? Is it really what we need or what we think we need?

     Kim Catrall was featured on "Who do you think you are", a television show about discovering mysteries in families. She had never met her grandfather because he left her grandmother after 10 years of marriage, never to be heard from again. Apparently, he wanted to move away and she didn't want to leave England and her family behind. So one day, he was just gone.  She was forced to raise three girls on her own with no help from his family. What Kim discovered after much research and meeting new relatives was that within a year, he was re-married, had two more children, and carted them off to Australia to live. There, he and his new wife had a 3rd child and lived there until he died in 1970. She was able to find photographs of him to show to her mother and aunts- who had no memory of what their father looked like or who he was. All they knew is that Dad left and never looked back. Watching their faces as they looked at his face, with their half-brother and sisters was unexplainable. The sad part, to me, was that it really didn't mend the traumatic heartbreak that Kim's grandmother bore from having her husband abandon her and their 3 daughters after 10 years together.

     So which was worse? No answer? Or knowing you were abandoned for another woman?

     I admire the women of this family for having the strength to handle the truth of the matter. After the show aired, Kim's grandmother, mother, and aunts have been in contact with their half brother and sisters in Australia. How amazing is that?

     Me?  I wouldn't want to know. After 26 years of living, it's my personal belief that if we allow people who hurt us to have power over us even after they're gone, we'll never heal. It's a vicious cycle [often hard to break] that can hold us back from allowing people into our hearts that will never leave, and will love us just as we are.