“...our loves ones truly are ever-present. We may bury their bodies or scatter their ashes, but their spirits are boundless and do not accompany them to the grave. The terms 'letting go' and 'closure' are just empty words. They mean nothing to someone who has suffered through the death of a loved one. Instead of insisting on figuratively burying our dead, why not keep them close to us? Love doesn't die when we do.”
Closure. A word forever out-streching visible boundaries into the realm of the unknown. Whether you deserved it or not is a different thing and whether you achieve one is something else. Forgiveness brings closure. So does accepting the situations which are inevitably dumped on us, by some uncanny force of nature, at some point of time or the other.
I couldn't, for example, get over the first boy I happened to like, who sort of (read brutally) cheated on me with one of my closest friends. I am still friends with the girl, but I let go of him (yelling hysterically in a local train, mouthing Kate Winslet's words from The Holiday). "I am miraculously done in being love with you," I said. Looking back, I don't think I was love with him. But there is only so much a 15-year-old can take. And hence the breakdown.
Truth be told, I haven't forgiven him yet, because he didn't deserve it. But I have definitely let go of it as an uncouth experience which is, perhaps the vestigial of teenage years.
Anyhow, I returned home a few days back and my mother asked me to visit my grandfather directly from the airport and see how he was doing. The mansion-like house where my dadu lives now, was built for the family of nine, including their two sons and their families. Eventually disputes crept in, and my father and uncle moved away to build their own houses, where they stay at present.
The door bell was horribly screechy, for the benefit of my grandfather who can barely hear. He was so surprised to see me, that I couldn't comprehend when he was happy or dismayed with my arrival. It had barely been a month since my grandmother passed away. While my grandfather lived the reality of her absence every moment, it was thrust upon me, as I entered the house of my childhood. For someone who forgets daily errands rather frequently, it was a surprise even to me, that I remembered the chair I sat on, while I ate smearing rice all over my face. The stairs leading on to the garden where I played by myself, the monstrous terrace which would come alive during festivals. Nothing skips the mind.
My grandmother clothes are neatly folded on the rack, I observed them while my grandfather added, that my granny's younger sister was desperate to marry him, but he choose Gran, because her face resembled goddess Durga. "Look. Didn't she?," he adds pointing out to her black and white framed photograph.
Closure. It is in knowing that people who you think have left you, haven't gone anywhere. Be it your atypical juvenile crush or a recently deceased grandparent. They live in your memories, sometimes in your hearts and often in your minds, as experiences which makes you the somewhat tolerable person you end up as. And it is never as bad, because in matters of live and love both death and heartbreaks are doom inevitable.
But, what changes everything is how you choose to look at it. A heartbreak makes you value love and claim it obstinately. You take the plunge, you leap, you confess and you move on, when it doesn't work out, almost fearlessly. Death makes you cling on to even the infinitesimal moments, and it's important that you do. But it's also crucial that you manage to smile when you remember... and when you do, nothing ever is truly lost.
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