Finding Closure: Who can move forward without it: 1

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We also see the way a tragedy can affect everyone involved, even those who are related to the ones who caused it. It's heartbreaking, but the quest for Closure is a bold and valiant one that Caitlin tries to share with the entire community. The results of the study conducted on the victims and offenders who participated in RESTORE were very encouraging as it relates to the completion of the offender reparation plans and victim satisfaction with the program. Koss (2014) found that about 66% of felony offenders and 91% of misdemeanor offenders completed the reparation plan drafted during the program. That is incredibly successful considering that sexual assaults cases handled through traditional adjudication resulted in 75% being closed without any consequences to the offender. Also critical to note is that 70% of the victims felt justice was done and 84% of the victims would recommend RESTORE to others (Koss, 2014). So what role does guilt and shame play in the RESTORE program? Highly recommended for children, teens, and adults alike – this book is definitely deserving of the National Book Award, and will leave readers aching to understand one another despite their personal problems. This story takes place after a school shooting, and Caitlin’s family and fellow students have to deal with the effects at both home and school. Caitlin, the main character, has Asperger’s, which is a type of autism. Therefore, she has a difficult time understanding people’s feelings and emotions. Her bother, Devon, was one of the victims of the school shooting. So now the family is only Caitlin and her dad, who has to deal with the loss of his son while taking care of Caitlin. Throughout the story, Caitlin sees a school counselor who tries to help her learn about other people’s emotions and learn about empathy. This creates the person vs. self conflict in the book because Caitlin must learn to empathize. Caitlin also learns that she, her father, and the whole community need closure to move on from the shooting. Caitlin and her father end up building a wooden chest, which was Devon’s Eagle Scout project. This helps bring them closure. Caitlin also makes a new friend in Michael, who lost his mother in the school shooting. By befriending Michael, Caitlin also learns a bit about empathy. In the end, Caitlin finds closure and begins to understand people’s feelings. Instead of going into great detail, Zusak uses short chapters that feel more like sneak peeks into her life. Additionally, it serves the purpose of joining Liesel, the main character, with the narrator, Death, and allowing them to converse on more equal terms.

Sometimes it may be necessary to seek outside support to help you process your loved one’s death and find closure. The importance of finding closure following a traumatic event lies in why people want answers and explanations as to why their loved one died. CBS Local. (2015). Arapahoe county DA: ‘Jurors did a hell of a job’. CBS Denver News. Retrieved from http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/08/07/arapahoe-county-DA-jurors-did-a-hell-of-a-job/ The desire to have closure or resolution after the death of a loved one is part of our human nature. We want explanations for the things we don’t understand, and we find it difficult to move forward when pieces of the puzzle are missing.Finally, there is Caitlin's voice. It drove me absolutely insane. Some have argued that this is a good thing. If Caitlin's voice annoys you then the author must be doing something right in creating a character that doesn't fall into the usual middle grade pattern of protagonists. She is unique. I note this theory, but I don't agree with it. My annoyance isn't necessarily who Caitlin is, but rather the fact that I never for one moment believe that I'm listening to a girl. Instead, for much of this book I felt like I was reading an adult woman putting herself into the head of a girl like Caitlin. How else to explain the off-putting "humorous" moments when Caitlin fails to understand a word or term? We have been assured that she reads at an adult level. Certainly her vocabulary should be through the roof, and yet she stumbles when she hits words as simple as "closure" and "fundraiser" (turning it into the strangely out-of-character "fun raiser"). It seems that Caitlin is only as smart as the plot allows her to be. Otherwise, she's adorably out-of-place, and that manipulation rang false. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. However, when grieving a significant loss, it’s sometimes unrealistic to expect someone to move on with their life in such a short amount of time. Can You Actually Get Closure After a Loved One’s Death? Reason for Reading: I have Asperger's and when I saw a book that featured a female protagonist with Asperger's I was elated and HAD to read the book. Finding closure doesn’t mean an end to the love you had for your loved one or that you’ll stop loving them or forget about them. There’ll forever be that aspect of their being that you’ll miss and yearn for from time to time.

Writing down your thoughts and ideas as they come up will help you release some of the pain and suffering associated with your loss. When you write things down, it enables you to make sense of your grieving process and what you’re going through as you experience it. Defining closure in our society generally means moving past our pain and suffering and leaving behind our grief. We have timelines and milestones to mark our progression and expect most people to get over their sorrow in six to 12 months following a death or other tragic event. When you focus on moving forward following a significant loss, it helps with the grief process when there isn’t any resolution otherwise. Take one day at a time in the initial stages and work your way up to planning a week or two at a time. I don't know if he means to keep cutting the oak tree or work on the chest but I say, 'Yes,' just in case he means the chest. What happens if the other person can’t give you closure? At that point, you have to accept that you can’t control the uncontrollable. (That includes others’ actions.) The core of this mindset is to let go of what you cannot change. Whether the other person is willing to hash it all out, or whether they are tight-lipped about it all, you ultimately need to give yourself closure. Below are some tips for embarking on the process.This might mean, for example, that you stop expecting your loved one to walk in through the door after the end of a long day at work. It means that you accept that you’ll never again hear their voice or that you’ll never again feel their touch. Grief counselors know and understand what you need to help you get through the toughest times in your grief. You’ll be able to find some low-cost or even free grief counseling available through the many resources online. Finding Closure After the Death of a Loved One Koss (2014) describes how RESTORE is a restorative justice program and the process that is involved. RESTORE is a program that attempts to foster a dialogue between the victim (called survivor-victims) and the offender (called the responsible person). The names used for the victim and offender in the program demonstrate how the program attempts to reverse the power roles that were in play when the crime occurred. Caitlin doesn't quite understand. Her older brother Devon is dead, killed tragically in a school shooting. She understands that, of course, but she doesn't like what his death has brought with it. As a kid with Asperger's, Caitlin has a difficult enough time figuring out the world around her as it is. Now she has glommed onto a word that seems to offer her a way out her current unhappiness: Closure. If she can find closure for Devon's death, maybe that will help her, help her dad, help everyone who's hurting. The only question is, what can a girl like Caitlin do to help herself and everyone else as well?