The grief that it brings—A Grief Observed
I was first encouraged to read this book after the loss of my mother a year after we moved to Gosport. Coming at such a time, the book echoed in various ways my own experience of loss, and highlighted through the personal memoirs of CS Lewis my own ups and downs and feelings of detachment.
This book is Lewis’ reflections on his feelings and thoughts after the loss of his much loved wife. It is honest, raw, and thought provoking and a helpful insight into another’s grief and into grief itself.
I don’t think that I had ever considered, before it happened, just how the passing of a close loved one affects a person. Seldom, if ever, had I heard a person reflecting on what it was like after a loved one was gone.
There is something about being British, or English (perhaps that’s more relevant!) that keeps us quiet about such a personal thing as death. It’s almost as if little has changed. Emotions are kept shut in, seldom shown at a funeral, and even less so afterwards—at least not in the view of others.
An honest baring of the heart is not only rarely possible, but the embarrassment to others (and to ourselves) of revealing this in public means that the door is kept tightly shut on what death brings to the living.
So, I appreciated this book. It is written by a scholar, but it’s an easy read and it can help those who are mourning see that they are not weird, or unusual, in the feelings they are going through and in the experience they are enduring. As such, this book makes a helpful addition to ‘our armoury’ in helping others experiencing the turmoil loss—and can be helpful if we have lost someone personally. Those who grieve are not alone in their experiences and of all the baggage that comes with death.
So, I commend this small book to those in grief, and as a ‘give-away’ to other people who might be enduring loss. Perhaps it will help them in opening up, and coming to terms with the reality that permeates all parts of life.
Available as a free pdf that can be read on the Kindle here:
http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/GriefObserved_CSL.pdf
ISBN: 057129068X
Pages: 64