Cheezie-Weezie & The Rift
Episode 07:10:2023 - Prompt: Closure
Where Closure took me…
The first death in my life occurred when I was 21.
My grandfather, who had always been healthy & vital, became ill.
Luckily, my mother had moved him and my grandmother up north from Miami so we could be with them before he died in hospice.
I had spent so much time with my grandfather growing up, but teenaged interests took me in other directions.
Instead of spending spring break with him in the pool, playing cards, and eating cheezie-weezies, I was off to Hilton Head on the coattails of a friend’s family wealth.
In hindsight, it was important to spend those final months by his side.
He had time to share his end-of-life thoughts with me.
Great epiphanies that could never serve him alive would be mine to cherish.
And while I was terribly sad the day he passed under the gentle nudge of a morphine drip, I felt closure.
I took the time to make peace, but not everyone else did...
My grandparents were married in 1934.
My grandfather was 24. My grandmother was 26.
It was her second marriage.
According to my mother, my grandmother had been married to a nice Jewish man who was unable to “give her children.”
I have a tintype photograph of this couple on the beach in the early 1930s.
My grandmother looks happy with this nice Jewish man.
Her mother-in-law advised my grandmother to “go out and take care of it”, meaning go out and get pregnant by someone else.
They would approve, but my grandmother chose divorce.
She met my grandfather - a handsome Italian - at a dance.
My grandfather’s family came over from Italy already in the beauty business. By the time my grandparents married, there was a salon and a beauty emporium.
Together, my grandparents were a power couple as business owners.
They had my mother four years later.
My aunt was born four years after that in 1942.
As the years went on, divisions grew amongst the foursome. My mother and grandfather bonded over art, music, and creativity.
My grandmother and aunt were both athletic, but my aunt had her own secret that wouldn’t come to light until the bonds were already worn.
A rift developed that forced her further and further afield.
By the time my grandfather died, my aunt had not yet made peace.
She did not sit bedside or visit.
At the funeral, she skipped opportunities to share her emotions with us and returned to Miami right after.
It would be 20 years before I realized what that lack of closure did.
She died on the same day my grandfather did, living like a squatter in the foreclosed house he helped her buy.
Alone. Broke. Unwell.
I don’t think she forgave herself for the events that had transpired leading up to his death, and of course, she could not get forgiveness from him.
For me, the lesson is to enact CLOSURE whenever possible so that I’m not living in the shadow of “Why didn’t I?”
I feel guilt for not addressing my anger with my aunt when she was alive, for not asking questions and learning more about her.
I now research her life to give myself closure.
YOUR TURN: A good friend of mine, a performance artist, had a project called Apology by Proxy.
She set up a stand where people shared a story, something that felt unresolved, and she would apologize to them on behalf of the person who wouldn’t do it.
The need for closure by the people who participated was so urgent that my friend was exhausted by the end of each session and closed the project.
Where does CLOSURE take you? Open endings welcome!
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I instinctually knew when the English voice on the telephone asked for my father, it was bad news. I called up to Dad working on the roof. Moments later, “Well kiddo, there's no easy way to say this. Ivor's dead.” I sat on the floor of the hallway, cradling our son in my arms and sobbing for while, but I knew I had to get to England and there wasn't much time. Our relationship had dissolved but Ivor always wore and looked after the plaited silver band I gave him as our “wedding ring.” I felt sure he'd want Joshua to have that. Telephone inquiries revealed that it was not in the envelope of his personal effects given to the family after finding his body. On our first visit to the funeral parlour, I saw it on his finger. They assured me that they would retrieve it for us but the morning of the funeral, at the final family viewing, it was still there. Rather casually, it was suggested that I “just take it off.” He and I were in a tiny private room. I warned him,”If your finger comes off in my hand, I will beat your dead corpse until it is unrecognisable,” and did the deed that would give me closure.
Completing a months-long project, meeting a difficult goal, walking out after a final exam, filing a major brief, finishing an institution-wide evaluation or a huge end-of-the-year report. Elation, yahoo, relief, whew! Closure is a blessing, right? Except when it comes to saying goodbye. On April 17th, I wrote about our friends’ 55th wedding anniversary celebration: “We all knew he'd had a very rocky time with health issues this past winter. All the more reason to celebrate. At the end of the meal, I brought out the cake with lighted candles. We sang heartily and took pictures of what could be the last tribute.” And it was. Two weeks after I wrote that piece, not he but she received troubling blood work results, which led to a diagnosis of aggressive, stage 4 cancer. Though previously symptom-free, she soon became too weak to pursue treatment. She entered hospice and a few days later died at home surrounded by family. Two months, and she is gone from this earth. From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison: "Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; God does not fill it, but on the contrary, God keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain." Today, I am grateful for the lack of closure, for emptiness and memory. Those blessings are the way we keep our dear ones with us.