One of the difficult lessons in my life is recognizing that some things are just left unfinished. As much as I believe that I am comfortable with change, I also crave order. I want arguments to end with peace, I want problems to have solutions, I want to believe that closure is not just a word, it is real.

But despite my optimism, despite the fact that my oft-stated “things have a way of working themselves out” generally proves true, there are some things that will never feel more than unfinished, never feel like anything other than raw edges.

Those painful things to which I refer are, of course, the losses in our lives, the holes that will always be empty spaces. Time has a way of scarring over those wounds but it does not take much to re-open the hurt. Maybe the trigger is the anniversary of the loss or an event. Maybe it is that wish, even years later, to be able to pick up the phone and have that conversation you wish you’d had. Maybe it is just the longing for them to see and know all that they are missing, all that would have filled them with joy.

I am sure that there are people who just “get over it” or think that they do. I think it depends on the nature of the relationship as well as on the nature of the loss itself. Losing someone before their time, facing a death that is not in the “natural order of things,” brings with it an inevitable sense of unfinished business.

I don’t know how to say the words I wish I had said. I don’t know how to have all the conversations I have wanted to have for so many years.

I don’t know how to fill the voids that exist other than focusing on love for what and who remains. That love does not dry the tears, does not close the wound, does not remove the ache. But it does make me feel that I am bringing their love and their life forward in the world as I try to carry both memories and a sense of their spirit with me, filling my own full heart.