A Grief Observed
24 pages • 48-minute read
C. S. LewisA Grief Observed
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Foreword-IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Foreword Summary
After the death of her husband of forty years, Madeleine L’Engle re-read A Grief Observed, finding that “the death of a spouse after a long and fulfilling marriage is quite a different thing” than what happened to Lewis, whose “experience of marriage was only a taste” (VI). L’Engle notes that C.S Lewis knew Helen had terminal cancer and that she would die first, and “moved into marriage with an imminent expectation of death in an extraordinary witness of love and courage and sacrifice” (VII). Although each person’s grief is different, L’Engle finds that Lewis captures the common elements of the experience, especially the physical sensations and worries about fading memories of the deceased loved one. Observing “that Lewis asks the questions that we all ask: where do those we love go when they die,” she appreciates the book for depicting grief as “normal” and “natural” (VIII).
Although L’Engle herself did not suffer the crisis of faith that Lewis experiences, she appreciates the “courage to yell, to doubt, to kick at God with angry violence,” for that is a part of“healthy grief not often encouraged” (X). She applauds Lewis for his candor, which “gives us permission to admit our own doubts, our own angers” and “to know that they are part of the soul’s growth” (X). L’Engle observes that “reading A Grief Observed is to share not only in C.S. Lewis’s grief, but in his understanding of love, and that his richness indeed” (XII).
Introduction Summary
Douglas H. Gresham, Helen’s son and C.S. Lewis’s stepson, provides biographical information and details about the relationship between Lewis and Helen that is at the center of A Grief Observed. Although their backgrounds were quite different, Lewis and Helen were striking intellects and arrived at Christianity after a “long and difficult road” (XVII). The relationship began when Helen, an American writer, wrote Lewis after reading some of his work, and a correspondence ensued. She traveled to England to meet Lewis and later moved to London after the end of her first marriage, as the two continued an “intellectual” friendship (XXIII). When Joy moved closer to Oxford, the nature of their relationship began to evolve, and “these two remarkable people come together, first as friends, then, in an unusual progression as husband and wife, and finally as lovers” (XVIII). Gresham writes that both his mother and Lewis realized that their union “was to be brief and end in sorrow” (XVIII).
Although Lewis had certainly experienced loss before, (his mother died when he was nine and he had friends killed in World War I) and had written about suffering, “somehow neither his learning nor his experiences had ever prepared him for the combination of both the great love and the great loss which is its counterpoint” (XIV). As a coping mechanism, Lewis began recording his grief in notebooks with “stark honesty and unadorned simplicity” (XXI). He later decided to publish his writings under a pseudonym, believing they might useful to others struggling with grief.
Introduction-Foreword Analysis
The “unusual progression” Gresham refers to is the specific order of events in the relationship between his mother and Lewis. Helen and Lewis were still platonic friends when they first married in a civil ceremony in April1956, in order to allow her and her sons to remain in England after the British government declined to renew her visa (XVIII). Following their civil marriage, Joy and Lewis were living apart but growing emotionally closer, and then developed a romantic relationship. In March 1957, Joy was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a short time to live. Lewis arranged a religious wedding ceremony, performed at her hospital bed. Subsequently, her cancer inexplicably went into remission and they enjoyed a happy loving marriage, until her illness recurred, and she died in 1960.
L’Engle and Gresham both note the uniquely personal nature of A Grief Observed, while acknowledging the universal aspects of grief Lewis endured. They both also commend Lewis for his honesty in revealing his innermost thoughts and feelings, and especially, for a prominent Christian writer, his courage in expressing his anger and doubts about God. Gresham and L’Engle recognize the important function the book serves in validating the full spectrum of grief reactions, including anger, fear, and despair, for readers seeking comfort.
L’Engle and Gresham observe that loss is an inevitable outcome of love, echoing one of themes of the book. Both emphasize that Lewis knew Helen was terminally ill when he married her, andthat their time together would not last long. As in almost marriages, one spouse will die before the other. Love and loss are inseparably intertwined in the human condition, for “all human relationships end in pain” (XVIII). However, knowing that does not lessen grief, for as Lewis demonstrates “the greater the love, the greater the grief” (XX).
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