'A Grief Observed' by C.S. Lewis - Review
Image by Mike Labrum via Unsplash
Written by Maisie Milward
‘No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear’
Grief is a manifestation of love with no outlet. It disguises itself through one’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviours; and with that you can choose to embrace grief like a warm hug, or you can run from it until it finds you again. Death isn’t the only cause of grief, contrary to popular belief: it can be the absence of something important to you. Something that has deeply inaugurated itself in the bones of your body and in turn you flee to fill this desperate void with something other than anguish. You might begin to blame the God you thought you didn’t believe in, or maybe you do and now you’re angry at Him, and yourself for your endless devotion with the reward of grief.
C.S. Lewis explores this very topic in his book A Grief Observed, after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, in 1960. He collects his thoughts of bereavement and delves into his experience of grief, loss, and God. Lewis examines his own questioning of his faith, something very dear to most, as he struggles to cope with the loss of his wife. Why would a God so powerful and so loving do this? Where is God? Why has God left me in a time of need? Lewis magnifies the thought process of most of those in the presence of grief, especially those of Christian belief. He studies the idea of being angry with God for being so present in times of joy, and wonder but fleeing in periods of despair, metaphorically comparing it to having a ‘door slammed in your face.’
As a Catholic, I found this read extremely relevant in terms of my faith. It’s hard not to become angry in times of anguish and Lewis so perfectly paints the portrait of starving that emotion. He thoroughly establishes the seven stages of grief in few chapters, presenting them non-chronologically just as one would experience them in real life. Alongside this, he turns his confusion and suffering to God, reluctant to blame Him for the chaos in his life due to loss but being unsuccessful at times. Investigating the meaning of life and death and Christianity as a trinity, Lewis often views God as a road back to a loved one.
Throughout this work, he studies his inability to come to terms with the absence of his wife, he talks about hiding away in memory to be with her again, and his own selfish motives of the desire to bring his wife back to life even if that results in death again, alike to the story of Lazarus dying again after being raised by the Lord at Bethany in the Book of John. Later on, he shares with us his own personal relationship with Christ and how that allowed him to face the presence of death and the separation from his wife.
In his final chapter, Lewis shares a memory of Joy’s words to the chaplain and her content with God, and finally wraps up his search for meaning with a nod to Dante’s Paradise with the Italian phrase, ‘Poi si tornò all'eterna fontana’ - ‘Then he returned to the eternal fountain’, still in a state of suffering but alike to Joy, Lewis is finally at peace with God.
This piece that was originally published under a pseudonym to keep Lewis’ identity under wraps, has been the most powerful piece of literature that I have read to date, and I can only encourage it to be read by all.
Edited by Nico Horton