No such thing as closure
Reflections on September 11, 2001
By The Rev. Daniel Heischman, Trinity College Chaplain

We talk a lot in our culture, these days, about the notion of closure. The verdict of a jury, the solving of a crime, restitution of some form or another, is thought (or hoped) to bring to people a sense of closure. There will be a clearing of the air and a tumultuous experience of loss and injustice will in some way be left behind, so that we can “move forward” or “get on with our lives.”

Such a way of thinking is understandable, but in my experience in working with people, particularly those who have endured a significant loss in their lives, there is a touch of the magical to such thinking: there is really no such thing as closure. Indeed, as Gail Sheehy wrote in Middletown, America, a study of one suburban community in New Jersey hardest hit by deaths from the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001, “The dirtiest word to the families and survivors struggling through the passage out of traumatic grief is closure. It is a feel-good notion, an attempt to anesthetize ourselves to what has been incontrovertibly changed.”  As Sheehy reminded us, “It has more to do with our own needs, as onlookers, than with the spiraling nature of grief that these families, and countless others who have experienced loss, must continue to experience.” The press to “move on,” “get over it,” “put it behind us,” comes from a sense of impatience with the ever-so-slow movement and resurfacing of grief. As many will tell you, it just does not go away!

To be sure, we have not “closed” on September 11. In fact, it seems from what I hear of the rhetoric used by so many to rally people to this viewpoint or that, it has become something of a divisive issue. One side resents the use of this great national tragedy as a political tool, the other side sees this as an icon of our common life that must never be forgotten in the name and pursuit of freedom. Whatever the event may mean to us, five years later, it is certainly not something behind us. Judging from the way it can be tossed around rhetorically, it may very well be that it looms larger in our national psyche than ever before.

What we are in danger of closing out on, however, is our remembrance of September 11 as a human event. Above all, lives were lost and those who survived the loss of loved ones found their own lives were changed forever. Whatever the rhetoric may be, as we make public reference to the impact of this day on our national life, we cannot forget its fundamental human impact in terms of loss. 

So, too, we would do well to remember the symbolic nature of this day. By this, I mean there is an uncanny degree to which the horrors we saw that day are vividly etched in our collective and individual psyches, by virtue of their shocking character as well as the way in which they seem to have touched resonant chords within us. It was one of those events that, as Erik Erikson describes it, assumes a momentous character because it is unprecedented yet mysteriously and strangely familiar. Closure of that sort some people clamor for does not come to individuals or communities who have witnessed such events that cut so deeply into our psychic worlds. It is a day that our inner lives will return to, again and again, and at times its uncanny power and impact will take us by surprise.

Each year, at Trinity, we hold a gathering of remembrance to recall the impact September 11 has had on our lives. At this event we always remember those graduates of the College who were victims of that day, yet many of the students who are drawn to the ceremony bring stories of their own, whether it be a loss that touched their own families or memories of where they were when they first got word of the series of events that changed all of us. This year, it is striking that any of our first-year students who attend the event were not, on September 11, 2001, in high school. Still, the impact will not easily nor quickly go away for quite some time. We may continue to move forward, and move chronologically further and further away from the actual date, but the depth of human loss and symbolic impact ensues that we can foreclose on any notion of closure for quite some time.