When Your Closure Looks Different Than Someone Else's

It was supposed to be a weekend of closure.

When I found out in the spring that my mom had cancer, the brothers began making plans for a visit. At the last minute, so did I.

I told myself it would be an opportunity to see her, to make peace (at least for myself).

It has always been tumutuous between me and her. Just under the surface, a boiling of resentment and unspoken hurt like a warm flow of lava about to explode.

Sometimes, it has bubbled over. There was that voicemail she left while I was in the air, sitting in my airplane seat flying back to Nebraska, the one about how I am not going to have people in my life who love me.

There have been a few emails, some texts and comments over dinner. And after a few days, she would call and act like nothing was said.

I had just decided that this is how it would be.

A few years had passed since I visited. I didn't have to think long about making the trip, especially once I knew 3 of the 4 brothers would be there.

There were lots of good talks with over glasses of wine and slices of pizza. I gave in way too many times when neices and nephews asked for cookies/candy/one more snack.

But there was no (tangible) closure.

There were no deep talks with the woman who taught me how to speak, no understanding over cups of coffee or hashing it out over a big slice of chocolate cake.

There was a few days of awkward conversation here and there, but that was about it. She did not come forth with any apology for screwing me over and I didn't ask her to.

But I left with peace.

Maybe healing and resolution doesn't come in the form we expect.

Raising kids has not looked like I expected it to look.

Marriage certainly has not look the way I thought it would.

My friendships have taken a different form over the years.

So why not closure? Does it have one form?

I am beginning to think not.

Maybe it isn't a big ceremony with weeping and the ceasing of gnashing of teeth. Not everyone's story will conclude with an intervention or love-note-to-say-I'm-sorry.

Maybe it's in what we leave behind, in accepting that it is okay, even when it doesn't look like it is. When I left the Sunshine State and flew home (this time to Texas, and with no ugly voicemail to greet me when I landed), I knew that our relationship would never be what I had longed for it to be for so many years. I was at peace with the boundaries I had set and with the truth that no matter what happened to her, I was okay.

For now, that is enough.