Tag Archives: A Grief Observed

Belief and Death – are the words so difficult to learn?

Posted on by

“Well, we have nothing if not belief.”

~Reepicheep

“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” (CS Lewis)

A Grief Observed, as well as other books and writings, by CS Lewis have comforted, challenged and confirmed many of my own feelings at different times with their stark emotion and startling honesty. Almost thirty-five years and a vast ocean between two continents separated the experiences of Mr. Lewis and my own. We were at very different points on life’s continuum; Mr. Lewis was in his early sixties when his wife, Joy, died and me in my late twenties when my wife died.

However, the experiences of Mr. Lewis I read about are eerily similar to my own experiences. The feelings of pain, sorrow, guilt and eventually a measure of acceptance and healing that followed. Grief is a solitary road we must walk alone, however the words Mr. Lewis shared have always made me feel not quite so alone, especially during my own time of anguish and the dark night of my soul.

My hope is that my words, the things I share and put into the world can do the same for someone else. We are all sojourners here on earth and sorrow at one time or another will wrap its cold arms around us all and hold us close. In those moments, we need grace and mercy, for if my own experience is any indication in those dark times of guilt and pain there often vows and promises made that we are never meant to keep.

The Truth About Death, It Matters!

Posted on by

There is death. And whatever is matters.
And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say birth does not matter. I look up at the night sky. Is anything more certain that in all those vast times and spaces, if I were allowed to search them, I should nowhere find her face, her voice, her touch?
She died. She is dead. Is the word so difficult to learn? 

~C.S. Lewis  ‘A Grief Observed’

remeber069The passage above from the C.S. Lewis book ‘A Grief Observed’ is haunting and oh, so true. There is death and it matters. I have read this book many times, losing count since reading it for the first time in 1993, shortly after the death of my first wife. This small book has given me comfort and assuaged my grief in entirely different ways each time. Every reading has found me at a different stage in the grieving process and my life. Much of my poetry deals with life, death, dark, light, faith and belief and I have also written about this subject over the years, here are a few.

So if you are ready, I invite you to plunge down the rabbit hole with me. 🙂 Take a deep breath for there is nothing to fear.

April of this year, 2016, will  mark 23 years since she died at the age of 27. I was left alone as a young man with a suitcase full of dreams which I believed that most would never come true. It was and still is time to create and pursue new dreams, which I have attempted to do over the past 23 years. With many setbacks and failures but also a lot of successes.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. ~C.S. Lewis

I am very happily married to a wonderful and beautiful woman (Carri, who I urge you to follow at Grace For My Journey) who loves me in spite of me and we have an amazing young daughter.  You may have seen some of the horse riding videos of my daughter that I have posted here or on Facebook and Instagram. If not, then I would be honored to have you follow me on both of those accounts and Twitter too! 

Ok, end of the shameless self-promotion! Further up and further into the rabbit hole!

I am doing things I never thought I would, but sometimes I cannot help but wonder; is it better than it could have been?  Nonsense questions, maybe, but I don’t know.

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. ~C.S. Lewis

I was there to the end when she took her last breath and I live with the hard truth that there was nothing I could have done that would have saved her. My life now is different and very amazingly good most days. I am happy and realizing despite some lingering survivors guilt; that life, this life, my life is okay and that is simply life and it goes on. Does that make any sense?

Anyway back to the passage above.  C.S. Lewis is right; death matters, to all of us.  Our own and others death,  is inevitable no matter how much we may choose to ignore it. We are all touched by this for if we chose life we will also chose death at some point. It is not an option to have one without the other. We ignore death and its consequences, remaining in our ignorance seemingly unaffected or touched by it until one day it will come up and smack us painfully in the ass!

I have never had an encounter where I could say without a doubt that I was visited by a spirit, ghost, apparition, angel, demon or whatever you want to call it of my dead wife. I have had few dreams and prayed hard for some small assurance that she is okay, nothing just silence from God and the simple phrase ‘trust me.’  Which I still struggle to do and yet my faith encourages me to have hope and just believe.

I have those moments where I stand at the abyss of what is and what was and what could be or have been, it seems easy to make a choice to throw it all away and to search for her in all the ‘vast times and spaces’ of the night-time sky if only to selfishly comfort myself in this world. But as CS Lewis says, ‘I should nowhere find her face, her voice, her touch. She died. She is dead.’ Not passed away or sleeping but dead. See the words are not that hard to say.

I distrust all those who say they have been visited by loved ones who have died. Really? How can you prove that? How can you prove love, we know it when we experience it but …? So I live with my desires both for this world and the next.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. ~C.S. Lewis

Maybe we cannot find the dead nor can they find us? We remain separated by the unknown, a vast undiscovered. We drift here in the physical realm easily disconnected from the spiritual realm. Maybe when we die physically and enter into the undiscovered that is when the beloved dead who preceded us will then find us?  A glorious reunion I choose to believe, what do you think?

If you could have seen the end from the beginning would you have chosen a different path? I leave you with this, yes, another C.S. Lewis quote; now go forth seize the day, live intentionally and remember you matter!Triggers

 

 

The Pain I Feel Now …

Posted on by
Two decades have passed; seems like yesterday, seems like an eternity.

 As my mind wanders back down the roads that have brought me here to this point in my life I sometimes still wonder if it all is just a dream or something else. Something the human mind can never fathom this side of heaven’s veil.

 “The desperate imaginings of a man dazed by what life has thrown at him.” ~CS Lewis

Questions have clamored for answers for so long but I have somewhat learned (or accepted) to live with the questions.  It is the absolute cold silence in response to the questions that haunt my mind even more so, like shadows that can never be grasped.  There are no answers this side of the undiscovered.

“The best is perhaps what is understood least.” ~CS Lewis

My memories are secure, albeit I am the first to admit not entirely accurate or true, as time has a way of reshaping history and the memories of days gone by.  Most are beautiful and serene with the remembrance of a life and the love it brought and shown in this world.  It is beyond my understanding, beyond mortal comprehension.  So I hold the memories close resting in this simple consolation.

 “Some moments can only be described in smiles; otherwise they won’t go into language at all.” ~CS Lewis

I must admit I do not understand it nor do I wish to pretend too.  I know very little, but I do know this; my nonsensical questions often have, nor need no answers.  What I do know is that life is here and now and is only lived forward.

 “And the past is the past and that is what time means and time itself  is on more name for death.” ~CS Lewis

Death a simple word really, only one syllable but containing worlds of promises, rewards, fear, mystery, beginnings and endings. It is a reality and one that we all must face.

“There is death.  And whatever it is matters.  And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible.”  ~CS Lewis

If you have read this far I applaud you for making your way through my ramblings to the end.  I leave you with this one thought dear friends, that there is hope, for death is not the end.

429594_10150601665461239_2145869737_n

I miss you Luka; still, after these long 20 years but know I will see you again. ~M

(All quotations are taken from the book A Grief Observed by CS Lewis)