A Grief Observed

How can one continue to go on with life when the love of their life perishes?  The famous author and educator, C.S. Lewis shares his personal trauma over the loss of his wife in his book, A Grief Observed.  In many ways the book allows Lewis to go through many of the stages when one loses a loved one.  The book chronicles the questions and feelings challenging how he can go on without the love and discussing the pain his wife experienced through her battle with cancer.  Grief is like fear, grief blocks out all other senses and feelings, and where is the “eternal one” during this process?  For Lewis, God is vanished when you knock on the door for help during this tragedy.  Religion does not serve as a consolation for the grief that he is now experiencing.  He also questions the thought of “life after death" for his wife, named H. in the book, as Lewis wrote the book under a pseudonym, and it wasn’t until after his death that it came to light that he was the author.  Grief is a process, as so many others who have experienced and documented it have claimed.  Towards the end of this stream of consciousness prose, Lewis does become more reliant and accepting of God into his life as the pain of the “disappearance over time” of his wife allows him to become more reliant on God.  The work is beautifully written, a book clearly from the heart.  It has passion, a purely human spirit that is expressed in a way that is moving and heart wrenching.  Lewis’ work stands out for his ability to take the hardest element of life, death, and demonstrates the confusion, pain, and complexity that arise from the loss.  This is a quick read, in terms of volume of pages, but it is a difficult read in that the reader is confronted with one’s own feeling on the issue.  To think that Lewis can write The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and this, all I can say is wow.  What versatility as a writer!