something very final about watching a loved one in a coffin burn. Before he goes into the fire, you can pretend that he is in a deep sleep. You can tell yourself that any minute, he can wake up and sit up right and talk to you again. No matter how logical and sensible the truth is, that glimmer of irrational hope for a miracle sits somewhere in your mind and in your heart, because the physical body still exists in one piece.

Watching that physical body burn, though, kills that. You know from watching it burn that there is no more body for the soul to wake up in and sit up and talk. The human being that you loved has been completely disintegrated in the fire. It doesn’t exist anymore, at least not in this world. He is completely and absolutely gone.

And in that moment, the full impact of your loss will hit you because there is no more hope left. That is when it hurts the very most, but that is also when you know for sure.

I guess that’s what people call closure.