I don’t know about you, but when I think about closure, I think about moving on, moving past, “getting over it” as some say. I couldn’t fathom how I would ever be able to get over this, though. As I started interacting with more and more women who had been through a similar situation, I couldn’t stop thinking about this concept of moving on. From the outside looking in it appeared that they had moved along. They were gracious with their time and shared stories of their loss and heartache but each one included a sentiment of, “it does get better”. I had a hard time understanding how they got to where they were. How was it that they could talk about their loss and their pain but still have joy in their life?
I found myself wanting to be right there along with them. I wanted to go on, I needed a new beginning. I was still heartbroken and it still sucked, but I didn’t want to get stuck in this never-ending cycle of despair. I yearned for a day where the miscarriage didn’t consume my thoughts.
Thinking about this concept of closure and how it applied to my grief, I was looking at it as a conclusion, an end to something. I pictured a 500 page hardcover book closing after the last page was read. I was assuming that the book would shut and never open again. I would move past this and stop thinking of what had occurred. Things would be normal again and it would be like my miscarriage had never happened.
But I grappled with this. I couldn’t see how that was ever going to be possible. Thinking back on the only other time in my life that I had experienced such an immense loss, I remember feeling like things would never be the same. 
That was fifteen years ago, when my cousin David passed away at the age of three and a half. I was 17 and, of course, my life and the world were very different. But that little boy brought so much joy to me and everyone around him. Life seemed darker without him in it. I remembered that my feelings and ability to move alongside the grief had come gradually after his death. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about him or how life would be if he was still here. Oddly enough, today would have been his 19th birthday. I missed him as much today as I did on what would have been his 4th birthday. I had never gotten over his death, but I had found closure. I have no idea when that was or how it happened but the point is, it did.
You see, closure isn’t about an ending. Finding closure means accepting a situation for the way that it is. This had happened, period. Once I came to grasps with this reality I could focus on moving on with my life. That didn’t mean everything was alright or that I was ok with this new reality. It simply meant that it is what it is. While that sounds cavalier, it was true. It’s near impossible to create the new beginning that I so desperately sought if I was continually preoccupied with what should have been.
The closure I felt today wasn’t closure on my grief. It was the closure of uncertainty, closure on feeling like things were spiraling out of control, closure on thinking that I had done something to cause this. It was acceptance. And when we accept, we find closure.
May you find the closure that brings you peace,
The Silent Struggle 