Convicted mass murderer John Muhammad was executed this week in Virginia. He and a teenage accomplice went on a three week killing spree in October, 2002, that left 10 people dead and a whole region of the country afraid.
Reports of the execution included select comments from some of the victims’ survivors. Many spoke about getting or not getting, a sense of “closure” with his death. I have been wondering, as I often do when people use this popular emotional term, just what they mean.
I think that closure, in this context, has come to mean this: I can’t forgive, and I can’t forget. But at least I have some sense of justice done, and that closes the book on that nightmare. I can sleep at night without endlessly spinning on the fact that the one I love is dead, and the one who killed her is alive. I think that closure in the case of state execution may be a soft, acceptable term for vengeance.
But people say they find “closure” when some hidden secret is revealed, or when they find the answer to some perplexing mystery, like the disappearance of a loved one. People don’t say “I have closure” when they forgive someone, or when they have attended a funeral for one lost to cancer or accident.
“Closure” is a contemporary image which means, I think, I can put this part of my life to rest. I can close the door on this room and finally walk away. I can shut this window, this file, this book, all the images we conjure of things that are open and unfinished that once closed, we can put down or away or forget.
But in the end, it’s a mirage. Because we will always have our whole life within us, and the whole of us to contend with from day to day. Nothing is ever really completely finished, is it? until the day we die. And even then, even then, God is not finished.
So, is closure just a wish for an end? That is my best guess on how we use it. Yes, we wish for our nightmare to end. And we call down closure upon it. Knowing, perhaps, it’s just a dream. But we call for it, nonetheless.