Closure?

It has been 7 months since my mother has passed and I have yet to intern her with my father. In fact there has been no formal service at all. It took nearly six weeks to even get her ashes. The funeral homes in the area were so backed up, even the mortician who lived on the same street as my parents wouldn't even take my mothers body, and I had to find another home. The whole experience was surreal to say the least.

There is something extra awful about losing your loved ones in a pandemic. You can't hold you friends and family and mourn. It is actually quite the opposite and has made me feel so lonely I don't even know what to think.

During a pandemic, you also, in fact, learn that some family will never offer their sympathy and other even find it acceptable to offer condolences over Facebook which was mind-blowing at best.

How do you move forward when you aren't even sure what happened? This is what I find myself grappling with. Some days are better than others, and then some, like when I break my ribs, miss the calls I would have gotten from my Mom asking how I was feeling.

I wonder, is it too late for closure? What exactly is closure anyways?

I remember my father's death vividly. It was March 20th, the first day of spring. My father had recently taken up bike riding and went on a 30 mile ride. I, on the other hand, was going out for lunch with girlfriends, the first since my son had been born, and the weather was glorious. It was at the lunch my husband called and said my father had been in an accident. I was so unconcerned I remember telling my friends to finish their beers.

Once we got back to our apartment panic started to set in. My girlfriends stayed with my then 8 month old son while we headed to the hospital to find out what had happened.

During that 30 minute drive my mind went to a dark place. Once we arrived at the hospital I said my fathers name and a nurse came and took me by the hand. When I continued to plea and ask where my father was, and didn't' get an answer, I started to scream, a scream that led many out of their rooms in the ER. I was brought to a room I can only assume is there to tell people their loved ones had passed and was met by my mother, who looked in shock, but never once cried. She went into go mode and immediately asked for a Priest to bless my father so he could have a Catholic funeral.

The days that followed were a blur. We had to allow enough time for family to fly in. My parents were midwestern transplants and all extended families still resided there. My father being a musician, we had to make sure we had the right music, right patron saint, my time living in Italy reminded me that it was Saint Cecelia for the mass card. I wrote the obituary. We had to plan what I always called the after party and what east coasters called a repass.

It still never felt real. I knew it was. But even with the funeral, the pomp and circumstance, it never felt real. I never got to say goodbye to my Dad, in fact for years I wondered what the last thing I said to him was.

And now yet once again I find myself in this all too familiar territory but knowing nothing more than I did 10 years earlier.

What I do know is how lonely it is.

There is something about losing a parent that is like no other form of pain. Being an only child and having lost both, at what I would like to believe is such a young age, truly does burn.

The only adult I can rely on now is me, and if you have known me at any point in my life and have seen some of my decisions, that is some scary shit, but I digress.

I just wonder do we ever come to terms or find peace when you lose a loved one under circumstances that are so gray? Do we ever find closure?

Unlike my Dad I did say goodbye to my mother, but she couldn't answer, had she heard me? Did she know how I tried to do everything from afar to make her as comfortable as possible?

I remember my mom telling me after my father died that this was the easy part. I didn't quite understand.

She went on to explain in the first hours, days, and even weeks after a death, you are surrounded by support. By people contacting you wanting to check on you. She said it's 6 months and after when the reality starts to set in and those visits stop and people start to assume you are "back to normal."

It is then, when you are in need of that check in more than ever, that it stops.

She was so very right.