A Grief Observed

Taking a stroll down the narrow, winding lanes of High, I was gradually led
to the towering heights of Magdalen. Aloft and quiet, it was fascinatingly
lonely and dignified. C.S. Lewis once stood atop that stony hill with Joy,
his wife and like a little child pointed out the magic of the spires to her.
To those who grew up trying to break the spine of the wardrobe in the
bedroom, with some childish indignation for the door to Narnia had been locked by
our protective parents, the life of Lewis is resplendent with magic. Yet it
is not the magic that mystifies, it is the sort that tickles the heart and
inspires the imagination... not the milk that blurs the tea, but the sugar
that sweetens the taste.

Joy Gersham burst into the life of a man who had known nothing but serenity
and quiet. He had baffled the world with such child-like discourse, coloured
with the intellectual propensity of an undisputable genius. He was a
British Gentleman, unused to the American forthright culture and she was the
American poet unused to the unspoken British air. Strangely, she knew his
mind and he, oddly, knew her heart. It was first a marriage of convenience
because Joy needed to stay in England and Lewis knew nothing but to be
helpful. She was in the throes of terminal cancer, but like a flash of light
that brightened the darkness, she recovered and they spent three years of
bliss. Love blossomed. I did not remember Lewis to be happier, till God
gently took her home. After that, the author of Narnia was never in a more
sorrowful disposition. Here He penned his final book, A Grief Observed, and
in the depths of feeling poured forth such anguish before the Lord of the
heavens.

I tapped my feet upon the cobbled stone pavement in contemplation as i
thought of the Lewis I admired. He wrote most of His books with assuredness
and composure, but he scarcely experienced the weight of pain until Joy and
after her he only wrote one book. I guess the purest emotion of pain and
anguish is reserved for those who truly love. A mother comprehends agony
when her child is lost and a best friend touches the floors of despair when
his good man rests. Many pretend to love, for fear of lonliness, others try
to love, for want of reciprocation. Lewis loved, and in doing so, found the
uttermost pain to be the symptom of true love.

And in his despair, he turned to God one evening in church and prayed.
There God comforted that weary pilgrim and there he discovered that only
when he loved God more than Joy, and be willing to let her go could he truly
love her. In that instance of surrender, the pain increased, but so did the
affection and so did the tears. Tugged away in that little church, that
little child loved. As i considered once more the life of Lewis, the magic
of it all mingled with pain.

Your brother
Charles