Dear Friends,
I am writing to let you know about an amazing book I just read about grieving. I know we have talked about this subject a lot, but I definitely had my mind expanded by this one. It is A Grief Observed by CS Lewis.
Some readers may have dealt with a lot of grief in your life and understand the ebbs and flows of how it affects us; how it changes and forces us to grow, but never fully goes away. However, I don’t think I have ever seen it written about in such a self-aware, raw and brutally honest way that only a dead British writer can!
All kidding aside, he really does put into words a lot of the things that I have felt, as well as some things I had never thought of. He challenges a lot of our notions of the soul carrying on to heaven or hell, and waiting for us to someday make our way back to them. Instead, he confronts the real, cold fact that our imperfect memories and the possibility of some continued ethereal soul bond hold little consolation when our loved one’s physical presence is gone for good. He laments that the imperfect and challenging relationship with his wife in 3D reality is what he sorely missed, and even though we can philosophize that our perception of others is only a biochemical representation of them in our own brains, when they our gone, that biochemical representation is only a shadow of what it was when they interacted with us on this plane.
There is of course, the fear of forgetting them too! We know that one all too well. And the feeling of being “like an amputee.”
He has it out with his God. He wonders how cruel a God can be who creates friends and lovers for us and then cruelly snatches them away, with no promise of ever seeing them again. Is God such a sadist?
Eventually, he does find that he is visited, in a sense, by his late wife. And it wasn’t as he thought it would be. It seemed devoid of emotion, business-like, and he wondered if the dead are actually pure intellect. He seems to come to a bit more peace and begins to recall how death actually brings meaning to life.
I was struck by not only his eloquence but the depth of language, inquiry and understanding that he portrayed. The loss of physicality really hit home for me. I can think about my Mémère being an ascended spirit all I want, but it will never get me a real hug and her saying “mon p’tit cher” and giving me a hot tea biscuit, will it?
And yet, even in that short book, written over a short period of time, he obviously moved through a lot. As we’ve talked about, your grief never shrinks, you just grow around it.
Love,
Mike
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Mike Aubé is an HHA death doula candidate and the author of Core Joy: Cultivating Sustainable Deep Happiness. You can learn more about him at mikeaube.com
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