Recorded Grief | A Grief Observed

The correlation of joy and pain | A Grief Observed | C. S. Lewis

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	• A Grief Observed C. S. Lewis HarperOne, 2001 - 112 pages average customer review:based on 134 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Strikes deep. Strikes hard.

A Grief Observed is a journal C.S. Lewis kept immediately after the death of his wife. It is heart rending. It is frightening. It is more so if one has read any Lewis apologia prior. C.S. Lewis, a man so clear, so forthright in his beliefs, stumbles when that which he cherished most on earth is taken from him. As well he might.

But, Lewis concludes a rousing comeback when he realizes that the suffocation of loss eventually turns to the closeness the passing of time can create. When the stunning horror finally fades, we recommune with our loved one to produce a spiritual unity; a recognition of all we loved, not of all we lost.

Lewis points out that every human relationship ends in sorrow. But, in doing so, he charts a course for every mourner through the darkest nights into the light of day. 5 stars.

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Recorded Grief

C.S. Lewis can almost be described as a contradiction. For much of his life, he was an agnostic, eventually coming to accept Christianity not through any miraculous transformation, but through rational thinking. He was a confirmed bachelor, but wound up marrying late in life, to the American divorcee Joy Davidman, his perfect counterpart in almost every manner. His life was awakened by Joy's presence, but their brief marriage (just nearly four years) was terminated when Joy died of cancer. C.S. Lewis kept track of his thoughts and ramblings after this event in a series of notebooks that became "A Grief Observed".

"A Grief Observed" is at times almost too personal. Lewis leaves nothing hidden, allowing readers access to his anger and his questioning of God. He claims that these are not all his thoughts, merely 'one in a hundred', that he has recorded as he tries to sort through his sorrow and grief. He likens his pain to various metaphors, including that of an amputee who still feels the pain of the lost limb - for Lewis, his lost wife who was part of him. He finds that it is always easy to offer comfort to those who have lost loved ones, to even pray for them, when they are not our loved ones.

He questions God at every turn, eventually finding his way back to faith, seeing this challenge as a test of his faith and love. "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down."

"A Grief Observed" is a short book, under one hundred pages, filled out with an afterword that is a brief biographical sketch on Lewis by Chad Walsh, an English professor and friend of Joy Davidman. It is a fitting close to Lewis' thoughts, to take a brief look at his life from a man who knew both husband and wife. For someone of such legendary status as Lewis in the academic and literary worlds, it is a unique experience to see his weaknesses. Lewis acknowledges that there is no map that one can make of sorrow, for it is a process that everyone must go through, and it is reaffirming in faith to travel alongside him through his grief.

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The correlation of joy and pain

The death of a spouse in a so-so marriage brings so-so grief. The death of a spouse in a joyously happy marriage throws the survivor into the extremes of emotional pain. "A Grief Observed" comes from the pen of the surviving spouse in the latter sort of union.

At 58 years of age, resolute bachelor C.S. Lewis surprised himself by falling madly in love and getting married, joyously, blissfully married. Four years later his wife Joy died a painful death. Watching her suffer, then losing her tore at everything Lewis believed. And so he wrote this devastatingly honest journal as his life line to God.

Give it somebody you know is suffering. The recipient will recognize their pain and know this is how it works. They will also find a balm in the news that the raw woundedness of it ends.

And read it yourself. It'll make your heart hurt in a renewing way.

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Jack Lewis Wrestles with God

One of the things I've always loved about C. S. Lewis is that there isn't the slightest hint of fakery in him. When you read his words, you read his heart. This is most true in his book, A Grief Observed.

These "jottings" were made in Lewis's private journals after the death of his wife, Joy, from cancer. They weren't intended for publication when written, but Jack later decided that they might help someone else who might be going through a similar experience as he.

This is Jack Lewis as Jacob, wrestling with God. It is not always a pleasant sight to behold, and yet we cannot take our eyes off it. He bites and scratches and yells at God at the top of his lungs, then falls back in a heaving mass of quivering flesh. But like Jacob of old, Lewis will not turn loose until God blesses him. And ultimately God does bless him - and us through him.

There are too many profound passages to quote. And we don't really want to quote everything. It would be like uncovering a secret. Lewis honesty sometimes borders on discomfort, a discomfort we feel with him and, if we have experienced a similar loss, understand.

The first sentence of the book sent sharp razors of memory through me. "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." After my father died, I remember that strange sensation myself. I didn't realize that grief manifested itself like fear. Lewis goes on to describe his mourning in terms so eloquent, and yet, when we read them, so real. In speaking about the memory of his wife showing up at particular times and in particular places, Lewis says no. "Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything." He speaks of how her face is becoming blurred in his memory, while her voice is still vivid. "The remembered voice - that can turn me at any moment to a whimpering child."

Lewis eventually finds his way through the terrifying maze of grief and finds that the God he was wrestling with was holding him in His arms all the time. "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't."

The lesson, for me, is that our ideas of how things "ought to be" are illusions of the truth that really is. God, through the natural process of death and grieving shatters our illusions and causes us to come face to face with truth. This is often extraordinarily painful. Says Lewis, "My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?"

Dr. Mike Kear

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