A Grief Observed

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I finished my second Lewis book in a quest to finish 800 pages of his writings by the end of the semester. A Grief Observed is not written in a book form with how people should feel when they lose someone they know, but it is written in a blog format with short small writings of his feelings. He didn't claim this book when it was first published, but wrote under a pseudonym. His feelings were open and honest. Some days he wrote when his heart was running this thoughts, and on other days he writes of what God's word and what he knows to be true. It was beautifully written, and I recommend it to those who have lost a dear one or anyone who wants to be reminded of God's truths.

A few quotes from the book that I highlighted and wanted to share:

"Getting over it too soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he's had his leg off is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce continuous pain will stop. Presently he'll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has 'got over it.' But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again. "

"The less I mourn her the nearer I seem to her."

"For in grief nothing 'stays put'. One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs."

"What sort of a lover am I to think so much about my affliction and so much less about hers? Even the insane call, 'Come back,' is all for my own sake. I never even raised the question whether such a return, if it were possible, would be good for her. I want her back as an ingredient in the restoration of my past. Could I have wished her anything worse? having got once through death, have all her dying to do over again? They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn't Lazarus the rawer deal?"

There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, winding valley where any bed may reveal a totally new landscape. As I've already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago."