Completion vs. Closure: Honouring What Cannot Be Tied Up Neatly
- Weaving Grief
- 38 minutes ago
- 7 min read
We live in a culture obsessed with endings, with clean breaks, with tidy conclusions, with stories that wrap up with bows that make things make sense, and that don’t leave questions hanging in the air.
We’re often told to “find closure” after a loss — whether that loss is a death, a breakup, a life change, or a dream that didn’t come to life. But closure, as it’s commonly understood, implies finality. It implies shutting the door, turning the page, and moving on. And for many of us — especially those navigating grief, trauma, or deep life transitions — that concept doesn’t sit right.
Because some losses don’t close, some stories never resolve in the way we hoped they would, and some relationships, even after they end, continue to echo through our lives in memory, longing, and love.
So what if, instead of chasing closure, we turned toward completion instead? What if we began to relate to endings not as doors that shut forever, but as thresholds we cross — holding what remains while honouring what is no longer?
The Myth of Closure
Closure is a concept born out of linear thinking. It suggests that grief, healing, or emotional pain has a final destination — a place you arrive at when you’ve processed enough, talked enough, cried enough, journaled enough, and healed enough. It’s often used as a goalpost, a marker of healing. Many of have said, “I just want closure”, “I need closure before I can move on”, “You’ll feel better once you have closure.”
But closure can become a trap — especially when it pressures us to shut down the open, tender places that still ache for acknowledgment. It can imply that our pain is a problem to be solved, rather than a part of us that deserves tending.
The truth is, there are some things we never get closure from:
The death of someone we loved deeply and lost too soon.
The parent who was never able to love us the way we needed.
The relationship that ended with words unsaid, or wounds unhealed.
The dream we outgrew but still grieve.
Grief doesn’t always end, it changes, it evolves, it integrates. But it doesn’t close in the way we’re often told it should.
What Is Completion?
Where closure asks us to shut the door, completion invites us to stay in relationship with what was — to integrate it into our being rather than seal it away. To weave our expeirences into the fabric of our being.
Completion is about tending the threads of our experience with honesty and care. It’s about acknowledging what happened, what it meant to us, what remains unresolved, and what is still true. It doesn’t mean everything is fixed, and it doesn’t mean the pain disappears. It means we’ve tended to what needed tending, and made peace with what cannot be changed.
Completion might sound like:
“I never got the apology I hoped for, but I’ve spoken my truth.”
“I still love them, and I know we weren’t meant to stay together.”
“This dream didn’t come to life, and I still honor the parts of me that tried.”
“I carry her memory with me every day. It’s part of who I am now.”
Completion is soulful. It’s nonlinear. It holds complexities, dualities, and the fulness of our human experience. It's rooted in compassion and spaciousness, not resolution. It doesn’t rush us toward a tidy ending. It gives us space to keep living, even as we carry what remains.
Completion in the Grief Process
A deep grief many carry is the absence of closure. When someone dies and there’s no final conversation, no reconciliation, no clear understanding — we’re often left spinning in questions and what-ifs.
Completion gives us a different way through. It allows us to ritualize, to witness, to speak the unsaid even if the other is no longer here or available.
Some of the ways we can work with completion in grief include:
Writing letters to the person we lost — sharing memories, expressing anger, love, forgiveness, or longing.
Creating rituals of honouring — lighting candles, planting trees, making altars, or visiting sacred places.
Naming what is incomplete — and making space for that to simply exist, without needing to fix it.
Telling the story — to ourselves, to others, in grief therapy, in community, or in quiet moments alone. Storytelling can be a sacred act of completing the inner loops that still spin.
Grief doesn’t demand closure. It asks for witness. It asks for space. It asks to be carried with love, rather than silenced in the name of “moving on.”
Completion After a Breakup or Relationship Ending
Romantic relationships often leave behind a tangle of emotions: relief, heartbreak, guilt, anger, tenderness, confusion. And often, we’re encouraged to seek closure — either through conversation, detachment, or cutting ties.
But sometimes, conversations don’t go the way we hoped. Sometimes people aren’t willing or able to meet us in mutual understanding. Sometimes the relationship ends abruptly, or without clear reason. And in these moments, closure can feel impossible.
Completion offers a different path.
It invites us to:
Reflect on the gifts and lessons of the relationship, even in its ending.
Grieve what never came to be, and name what was lost — hopes, futures, versions of ourselves we were becoming.
Acknowledge the parts of us that were hurt, and offer them compassion, rather than demand they be “over it” already.
Honour the love that was real, even if the relationship didn’t last.
Completion means letting something come full circle in our own hearts, even if the external world offers no clean conclusion. It’s an act of emotional sovereignty — reclaiming our ability to hold and honour our own experience, even when others can’t or won’t.
The Role of Ritual and Witnessing
Completion is rarely a solitary process. In many traditional cultures, endings were marked with communal ritual — ceremonies of grief, loss, release, and renewal. There was space to mourn what had been, and to bless what was to come. There were witnesses to our pain and our transformation.
In modern life, we often grieve alone. We process change in isolation. And without ritual, we can feel stuck in a liminal space — no longer in the past, not yet fully in the future.
Ritual can offer us a threshold. A way to step into completion, not by forgetting or denying what was, but by honoring it.
This can be simple or elaborate:
A quiet moment by a river, speaking aloud what you’re releasing.
A fire ceremony, writing and burning old stories or unspoken words.
A gathering of close friends to share memories, laughter, and tears.
Creating a piece of art that holds the spirit of what was.
Ritual gives shape to the intangible. It invites the body into the process of letting go. It allows us to be held by something larger — community, nature, the sacred. And in this space, completion becomes possible. Not because we forced it, but because we created the conditions for it to emerge.
Why This Distinction Matters
The pressure for closure can pathologize normal human emotion. It can make us feel broken for still missing someone years after they’re gone. It can make us question our healing when our hearts still ache.
Completion gives us permission to carry grief in ways that are regenerative, integrated, and alive.
It says:
You don’t have to forget to move forward.
You don’t have to sever connection to find peace.
You don’t have to be over it to be okay.
Completion respects the enduring bonds we carry — with those who’ve shaped us, those we’ve loved, and those we’ve lost. It allows grief to become part of our story, not something we must overcome.
It invites us to live in relationship with the past, while still making room for the future.
Final Thoughts: A Life of Open Endings
What if we stopped trying to close every story? What if we lived lives that honoured open endings — where grief isn’t rushed, love isn’t erased, and memory is allowed to linger?
Completion is not about forgetting or finalizing, it’s about tending, witnessing, integrating. It’s about making peace with what cannot be changed, and finding meaning in what remains.
So if you find yourself in a place where closure feels out of reach — know this:
There is another way. You can honour the ache, you can grieve the unfinished, you can bless the messiness of being human, and you can find a deeper kind of healing — not by closing the door, but by completing the circle.
Reflective Invitation:
If you're navigating an ending or carrying something that feels unresolved, take a moment to pause and ask:
What feels incomplete here?
What still wants to be named, honoured, or expressed?
Is there a ritual, act, or conversation that could bring a sense of completion — even if closure is not possible?
What would it mean to stay in loving relationship with this experience, rather than trying to be done with it?
Let your heart answer. Gently, slowly, and without pressure to fix or finalize. Completion is a process — and sometimes, it’s the most sacred kind.
About Us:
Weaving Grief specializes in compassionate grief therapy for individuals navigating loss of any kind - death, breakups, relationship transitions, chronic illness, loss of self, and more. By addressing these profound experiences, Weaving Grief empowers clients to grieve freely and live fully. Through somatic practices and meaningful reflection, we’re here to help you navigate these tender moments and rediscover the fullness of life.
Specific areas of focus: death of a loved one (recent or past), life changing transitions, relationship transitions and break ups, pregnancy loss, grief around family planning, chronic illness, loss of Self, and supporting entrepreneurs through the grief that comes with growth.
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