On the one hand, it is like a death of sorts, and so we fear it. We fear the moment finally being over. We fear that passage in life being closed to us. We want to go back to it, to have it always available to us. And when it is closing, we can be filled with fear or dread or a strange kind of melancholy. The sweet sorrow that Shakespeare mentions.

On the other hand, closure feels satisfying. The desire to return to that moment is over, and now it is just a memory and not a longing. A longing that can’t be satisfied can hurt, so the transformation of that moment from longing to memory can end the pain, if you want to call it that.

And if we are Shiva and have a third hand (and a fourth, fifth, and sixth), we can see that closure also is rewarding because of its similarity to mortality — it makes us appreciate more fully the time we had that is now over. It can remind us that we are in a moment now that will close, and if we are living rightly, this moment, too, will be thought special — though many times while we are in the moment we not thinking about it that way. In the last episode of “Six Feet Under,” the daughter, Claire, is taking a picture of her family on the front porch as she leaves for college. Her dead brother, Nate, appears behind her and says, “Don’t take a picture. This moment is already gone.” That seems odd to say. That seems like he is saying don’t remember this moment. That seems like he is saying the moment isn’t special. But I think he is saying that the moment is always passing. Don’t resist the passing. Don’t cling to the past (which is different from “don’t remember”). Be now. Closure perhaps helps us realize the power of the moment that has passed, which can remind us to look for the power of the moment that is now passing, for the current adventure and for the next adventure.