closure doesn't trump grief

i heard a story on NPR today (can't find it online, yet, but here is a similar story from the New York Times). I was shocked to hear that "heroin-related deaths increased by 84 percent in New York City between 2010 and 2012". If I remember correctly, the reporter mentioned that more people die of heroin overdose in the city than are killed in car accidents. (I have to double-check on the latter once the story gets posted online).

i was going to share this story with J's mom but then i remembered that she gets upset when anyone (his younger sister) says that he died of a drug overdose, even though, we both saw the autopsy report. he did have heroin and cocaine in his system.
thinking about the stigma of an overdose - (is there a stigma?) - the question sprang to mind, whether the medical examiner wrote the cause of death as "natural" because she wanted to spare our feelings. the report mentions the drugs and excessive alcohol in his system, but - apparently - that is not what killed him, or is it?

when i drive by the building he died in, i wonder about the police's sincerity, too. i wonder if they put "no fault" on the report just to save themselves from the hassle of investigating yet another "hoodlum's" death. i'm sure, that's what they thought of J, lying there on the kitchen floor in that house full of small time criminals.

i also contemplate, whether it would make any difference if i confronted the people he hung out with that night. when i identified his body, he looked like he had been beaten up. i have been told all kinds of stories possibly explaining why he looked the way he did, but somehow i find all of them hard to believe. he looked like he had been in a fight. also, one of these guys took my credit card off him and used it until i noticed, over a week after J had died. or maybe he exchanged the card for drugs. i don't know. i think, i've already written about this... but ... it continues to haunt me .. that question of what really happened that night.

and when i find myself wondering about all the facts surrounding J's death, i usually end up chastising myself angrily. who cares what happened?! .. it doesn't change the irreversible fact that he is gone. doesn't change a thing. closure doesn't trump grief. you will continue to be f-in miserable without him for a very f-in long time, and that's that. just deal with it. why do you have to go bark up a tree now, probably get yourself in trouble? you have kids. focus on what's important now. finding work and caring for your children.