let me tell you about Tim 15 years ago Tim's wife died they were in their 40s recently i sat down and asked him about his grief he told me this he said there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of her our lives would be different now what would she look like what would she be doing what would she think of about this what would she think about that I asked him does this surprise you the 15 years later you think of her every day he said no no we were just too
close for me not to if you were listening to Tim what would you say to him what would you be thinking many people in our culture might think that Tim is stuck in his grief that he needs closure so that he can move forward but Tim would tell you he's doing just fine he's happily remarried he has a fulfilling challenging career he loves his kids and grandkids yeah he misses his first wife but that makes sense to him she was his first love the mother of his children he still loves her so why would so
many other people judge Tim and others like him who choose to carry their grief and their loss forward its closure it's as popular idea we have in our society there's no one definition for it a loved one dies and we're told we need to find closure school shootings happen and a community looks for closure death penalty advocates tell us we need executions so that the victims families can have closure when Osama bin Laden was killed headlines across the nation said now we can have closure to 9/11 of course other headlines told us that the victims
families reported they never have closure there wasn't going to be an end to their grief and their loss and people use closure to mean different things some people talked about for peace and forgiveness but others use closure to talk about getting revenge and vengeance some say it's about forgetting others say remembering and even though there's not one definition for closure there's a common interpretation of it and that there's an end to our grief there's a finality to something bad that happened so here's the question when bad things happen do we need closure my answer is
no but I'm going to take it further closure doesn't even exist it's a made-up concept that we use to talk about loss and grief but seeking it can do more harm than good now some of you about now are thinking well that's just great she's here to tell us there's no closure there's no end to our pain and our grief this is not inspiring this is not an idea worth spreading right but that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is you don't need closure to heal and to help us understand that we're going to
have some space up here and you're going to help me with this so here we're going to have our space of joy so I want you to take a moment close your eyes if it helps and think about what brings joy into your life what's brought joy in the past so this will be our space of joy I'm gonna walk over here and here we're going to have our space of grief and loss what have you grieved in the past what might you grieve in the future and some of you are grieving today it's not
just the death of loved ones that we grieve our life is full of losses and when we enter that space of grief and loss one of the questions that comes up is how do we get back over there to the joy and that's where closure comes in it's this idea that if I can wrap up that pain and that grief it's going to be easier for me to get back over there it's appealing but sometimes that grief can be so overwhelming you can't even see over there I get that 11 years ago our first baby
was stillborn shattered my life I was so deep in the space of grief I couldn't see over there one of the hardest things that someone said to me I actually wrote in a card was that someday this will just be a memory that made me angry because I didn't want a memory I wanted my child now she meant well because what she was trying to say was someday I won't be here I'll be back over there with the joy but for me at that time and still to a large part my love and my child
and those memories uh that was in this space I wasn't going to go over there without it but it can be so overwhelming to be in this grief that that idea of closure is appealing it's appealing to think how do I give back over there so closure seduces us we want that so businesses use closure to sell products closures the sizzle the funeral industry promises closure the grief in memorialization industries promised closure those selling autopsy services private DNA profile kits wrongful death attorneys the promising closure if we buy their products and services politicians promises closure
executions a larger DNA database harsher criminal laws but the problem is the concept of closure distorts what's actually going on with our grieving and to help understand why that distorts going to use this box this box is a lot like closure it's appealing it's pretty comes in different shapes and colors when bad things happen we often hand people a box a metaphorical box and we say to them put all your pain and your anger and your hurt and your tears and your memories put them in that box put the lid on it and set it
on a shelf leave it there and then you can walk back over here to the joy don't bring it with you now sometimes or maybe I should say most of the time we're trying to close other people's pain other people's grief because when we're deep in grief it's interesting we sort of understand that there's not going to be simple closure to this but for other people and again we mean well you know because we don't want to see them in pain but we want to help them get closure and so I might be over here
in my space of joy and I see someone enter that space of grief could be a friend a family member co-worker might be a stranger and from here I can see them enter and I don't want to get too close because it's more comfortable over here so I might say hey see that box go ahead and put all your pain in there and your tears put all the icky stuff in there leave it there and they come back over here and join us you know don't bring the box closure it doesn't work that way does
it it's not that simple the reason it doesn't work that way because this idea joy over here and grief over here is an illusion and I set it up that way because our culture gives us these messages that our emotions are split that there are these positive emotions like joy and love and then there is negative bad ones like grief and anger and pain and we want to try and have the positive but you know we don't want so much the other and try and prevent it in to get rid of it but that's not
the way emotions work either emotions don't come with a particular value judgment on them and we can also carry more than one emotion at a time so rather than joy being way over here in grief and that space between them they're actually together they're intertwined and as humans we have the capacity to carry joy in grief at the same time so what would happen if rather than telling people to put a lid on their pain we open the box and listen to people's stories this one's Gloria Gloria is a mother whose son died in his
early 20s five years after his death I sat down and talked with Gloria she said one of the hardest things was when people would ask her how many children she had you know you don't know somebody and you're getting to know them and she said that if she didn't talk about Jake her son who died then she felt bad because he still hurt her child but if she did tell them about him then people get uncomfortable and they wouldn't know what to say and it kind of stopped the conversation so that was awkward too so
I asked her I said Gloria what would you want people to say how would you want them to respond after you told them about Jake and I'll use her words she says I know nobody would do this but I guess what I'd really like is for somebody to say oh I'm sorry but tell me about him tell me what kind of person he was her son was funny he made her laugh she has all these funny stories that she wants to share yeah they make her cry too because she misses him but that joy and
grief they can go together and if we ask Gloria to keep all those stories in a box she doesn't get to have that joy this one's about Dan his wife Carrie died 12 years ago they were in the early 30s had several small children together and I'll use his words to describe what grieving is like for him when I grieve it helps bring joy back into my life because you ask yourself why you grieve and I grieve because something precious something of great Worth has been taken from me and that grieving hurts it's so painful
and your heart just aches but then you remind yourself that a joy that took place of knowing that person I wouldn't grieve for Carrie if she didn't give me joy if we didn't have that love and I'm so thankful I'm so thankful that I knew Carrie and as much as it hurt to lose her and the grief that it caused it was worth every tear joy and grief are intertwined we grieve because we love this one's from Angela it's not after a death it's during a time of crisis her child was in the hospital for
over a month a serious condition dialysis was part of his care and she shared this moment she said one day the nurses were telling me that I needed to go rest so I walked out into the hall and there was this machine with this dome on it and I had never seen a dialysis machine so I didn't know what it was but I was just sick seeing it and I went back in and asked is that a dialysis machine out in the hallway and the nurses went out and they looked and they laughed and they
said you need to go get some rest that is the floor cleaning machine an Angela laughed even during a time of crisis during a funeral during times of loss joy and laughter is important that's what helps us catch our breath so that we can move forward through that hard time remember Tim 15 years later he's still thinking about his wife before she died he thought people got over grief quickly that it was pretty easy and I asked him why he thought that and he kind of laughed he said I don't know any Sud I just
assumed that you know you grieve you're really down and then you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and walk away from it isn't that what they do in the movies I'd like to watch westerns and they shoot the guy and his wife comes over and goes oh crap he's dead what do you have you know they cry for a minute and then get up to walk away and start building their life again you found out that wasn't how it worked but his own loss in his own grief and give him a deep understanding and
compassion and now he can be with people and support them and talk to them who are going through that kind of loss we live in a culture that tells us we can be happy all the time and that if you're not happy you're doing something wrong but that's not the way it works and if I might use some academic technical jargon for just a moment sometimes life sucks bad things happen knowing that joy and grief can be carried together so important because it's a long journey without the possibility of joy so the next time that
you see someone who's entering that space of grief might be a family member might be a friend a co-worker just someone you recently met don't hand them a box don't tell them to find closure meet them where they're at and they might be broken and down and beaten up meet them where they're at and while you're there take a moment and look around because you might be surprised at the view you have when you're on your knees and if you're the one broken you might be surprised at how comforting it can be to have someone
just meet you where you're at not to try and get you to stand before you ready not to try and take away your pain or explain it away just to be with you and when you're ready to give you a hand up to take those steps you see it's not about closure healing yes but that's different it's about learning how to live with our loss it's about learning how to carry our grief in a way that leaves room for the joy and love the joy and the love from our past and the joy and the
love that lies ahead yet we live in a world that's desperate for more compassion we live in a world that needs to be in better touch with our humanity what would happen if rather than telling people put a lid on their pain we opened our boxes and we helped each other carry our joy and grief together and there's beauty there in art and photography it's the shadows that give a piece depth it's the shadows in our lives it's the shadows and the light together it's the grief and the joy that bring beauty and depth and
character so joy and grief that space between is not so far apart it's actually intertwined and I know that can be scary I get that but it can also give you freedom its freedom and knowing you can carry joy and grief together there's freedom and knowing you don't need closure to heal thank you you [Applause]
