The word closure is often used to describe a feeling of peace at the end of something, usually a relationship of some sort. It implies acceptance and release of the person you love. It comes from the Latin for the word shut. Like shutting a door. After Mom’s service, I should have closure of her life. Acceptance that she is gone. Understanding that she is not coming back. A service of some kind is actually designed for the purpose of closure, for those closest to the person who died. A final chance to close a life.

I have a problem with the word in this usage. It seems to me if the door is shut it cannot be opened again. Closure means not looking back. It is the permanence of the word that sits badly with me. It is as if, once I have experienced closure, I can move on my merry way. I realize this is a strict interpretation of the meaning, but I don’t find it useful at all. I would bet there are others who have lost loved ones who would agree with me.

I much prefer the word settled. Mom’s life has been settled. She is at rest. Her body no longer holds her captive. To settle a life doesn’t mean the door is closed. It means she is at peace and I can rest in that fact. When you are settled it means you are comfortable. When I settle in for a day at home it is a comfort to me. I gather family on holidays and birthdays and I feel settled in being together. Once decisions are made such as where a vacation will be or where we will have lunch, we say, ‘It is settled.’

For Mom, she wanted an Episcopal service. She settled that herself, long ago. Her switch from Baptist to Episcopal was because of her love of the liturgy. That love would not allow her a short, non-descript chapel service. She wanted a church. She wanted her priest. She wanted her favorite hymns. She wanted Oreo’s ashes to be mixed with hers, so they would be together. She loved that dog, and made sure Dad knew she serious in this request. She wanted wild flowers. He complied with all of her wishes. It was settled.

The service was exactly how she would have wanted it. The reading of her favorite scriptures, Old Testament, Psalms, New Testament and Gospel. Congregational singing of Amazing Grace and Blessed Assurance. A family Eulogy spoken. A message from her priest. A song, The Lord’s Prayer, which has long been a staple at family events, was sung by a tenor and rattled the windows, just as she would have wanted. A Taize prayer was included because it was one of her favorite ways to use silence and meditative music to connect with God. Her granddaughters-in-love closed out the service with a beautiful duet of It is Well with My Soul. It was a celebration of Mom’s life. It was lovely. Burying her ashes was a sweet time for our family. Each of us contributed. Our tears watered the ground where she was interred. Flowers littered the ground over her resting place. It was settled.

There is no closed door on Mom’s life. I think of her daily. I see her in the birds she sends my way. I hear the wisdom she left behind in my head. There is not closure, but her life is settled. The loose ends tied up. The physical pain gone. The rest she needed has arrived. She is at peace. I am at peace. The door is still open for me to look back through, to remember. I can talk of her in retrospect and be full of joy that I got to have her as my Mom for the majority of my life. Her life is not closed to me, quite the contrary, it is more open than ever in some ways. A life well lived. A life of service. A life of love. People who loved Mom are sharing her with us in new ways. Ways we never fully knew. She impacted so many lives, like a rock in a pond with ripples that go on and on and on. Those ripples are not a life that is closed or a shut door. They go beyond her life, and continue on in us…It is settled.