I read C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed tonight. Maybe I should say I finally read it. My mom has read it at least twice. I recommend reading it all together in one sitting, like I was able to do tonight. It's not a long read - maybe 90-115 minutes ...
Contrary to what you might think (ok, contrary to what I thought), it's not just for widows or widowers. It's not just for those who have lost lovers. It's really for those who have lost loves, or those who consider the loss of loved ones (what parent hasn't considered the loss of a child?). And it is for those who question the grand mystery, even the intent and purpose behind the universe.
I love so much of this book. So much. He puts a lot of what I have felt and am feeling into words - and pretty much just like I wish I could say them. I just might answer those question-ers by saying, have you read this book? Please go and do.
I have been at peace with the loss of my dad for quite some time ... I feel like he was and is and still will be. He is just not here now - that we can see. Regardless of who or what comes into my life, or how my children grow to know my dad or the space he left behind, he was and is. He built into me - thus building into them, and he loves them still.
But here are a few excerpts simply because I cannot resist. Cannot. Won't. Please pardon my passion if you must.
"I have no photograph of her that's any good. I cannot even see her face distinctly in my imagination. ... No doubt the explanation is simple enough. We have seen the faces of those we know best so variously, from so many angles, in so many lights, with so many expressions - waking, sleeping, laughing, crying, eating, talking, thinking - that all the impressions crowd into our memory together and cancel out into a mere blur." (ch. 1, pg. 15)
"And suddenly at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least, I remembered her best. Indeed it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier. || Why has no one told me these things? How easily I might have misjudged another man in the same situation? I might have said, 'He's got over it. He's forgotten his wife,' when the truth was, 'He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.'" (ch. 3, p. 44)
"Looking back, I see that only a very little time ago I was greatly concerned about my memory of H. and how false it might become. For some reason - the merciful good sense of God is the only one I can think of - I have stopped bothering about that. And the remarkable thing is that since I stopped bothering about it, she seems to meet me everywhere. Meet is far too strong a word ... Rather, a sort of unobtrusive but massive sense that she is, just as much as ever, a fact to be taken into account. ... || It sounds as if she were rather a battle-axe. How can I put it better? Would 'momentously real' or 'obstinately real do?" (ch. 3, p. 50)
"Still, there's no denying that in some sense I 'feel better,' and with that comes at once a sort of shame, and a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one's unhappiness. I've read about it in books, but I never dreamed I should feel it myself." (ch. 3, pg. 53)
"The notes have been about myself, and about H., and about God. In that order. The order and the proportions exactly what they ought not to have been. And I see that I have nowhere fallen into that mode of thinking about either which we call praising them. Yet that would have been best for me. Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it. Praise in due order; of Him as the giver, of her as the gift. ... But by praising I can still, in some degree, enjoy her and already, in some degree, enjoy Him. Better that than nothing." (ch. 4, pg. 62)
In the middle and near the end, he considers some pretty personal questions about God's character and intention. This piece I love:
"Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learn to love you so much that I don't care whether I meet her or not? Consider, Lord, how it looks to us. What would anyone think of me if I said to the boys, 'No toffee now. But when you've grown up and don't really want toffee you shall have as much of it as you choose'? ... When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.' || Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that." (ch. 4, pg. 68)
And this, just because I hope this describes what Pat and I have: "Solomon calls his bride Sister. Could a woman be a complete wife unless, for a moment, in one particular mood, a man felt almost inclined to call her Brother?" (ch. 3, pg. 48)
