Post 5: A Grief Observed

Many different ideas and thoughts struck me when reading C.S. Lewis’ A Greif Observed. Lewis’ transparency, simplicity, and poignancy all were distinctive things in his book. And I feel like we, as readers, cannot fully soak in the significance of the book until we stop trying to figure out what his words meant for our lives, and instead figure out what did the words mean for his life. After all it was a journal of his observation of grief.

It seems from Lewis’ examination, grief caused him to question a lot of things that he was so sure of in his life such as his faith. From the beginning of the story, he goes straight into venting about his aggravation towards God and sounds almost blasphemous to some readers. But I feel like he carefully writes his frustration; placing passages to remind us that this is a side affect of his grief. At one point in chapter 1, he skillfully places “one only meets each hour or moment that comes” in the middle of the chapter, between his supposed “blasphemy.” When I read this I began to understand where he was coming from (not literally or to the full extent of his grief, but to a point where I could become emotionally connected through his text).

In his own observation, I feel like a reoccurring point he was trying to get across was that we could not fully understand grief and the side affects from it unless it hit us at a personal level. I feel like a another good passage from the story that depicts this is “you never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”

(I have no idea how I ended up transitioning into this). I remember a lot of people in class saying that the book was sad especially since it was written during his last few years alive. I think opposite. Yes, it is sad that he had to deal with his wife’s death and the emotional baggage it left. But I feel like instead of empathizing we should rejoice that a man recorded with such honesty during his final moments. Many people will never come to that place in their lives.