He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954 when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably the most influential Christian writer of his day. He grapples with a crisis of religious faith, navigating hope, rage, despair, and love - but eventually regains his bearings, finding his way back to life.Ī luminous modern classic, A Grief Observed has offered solace to countless readers for decades.Ĭ. In this intimate journal, he chronicles the aftermath of the bereavement and mourning with blazing honesty. When she died of cancer, he found himself alone, inconsolable in his grief. Lewis had been married to his wife for four blissful years.
Joy wrote in mid-1957: “Jack and I are managing to be surprisingly happy, considering the circumstances you’d think we were a honeymoon couple in our early twenties, rather than our middle-aged selves.”.No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.Ĭ.S. The next couple years were filled with remarkable happiness. Joy was then able to progress from bed to wheelchair to almost normal walking. Shortly after this second ceremony, a remission in Joy’s cancer occurred. They were married in a civil ceremony in 1956 and later, after Joy was diagnosed with cancer, married by an Anglican priest in 1957. The rather strange circumstances surrounding their marriage are powerfully portrayed in the BBC or Hollywood movie versions of Shadowlands. They had only been married for a few years. However, clearly the most painful event was the loss of his wife Joy.
His mother died of cancer when he was a boy, he was sent away to a boarding school with an abusive headmaster later declared insane, he was wounded in World War I, and his father failed to visit him in the hospital despite his pleadings.
Lewis had a number of particularly painful events in his life. Although the events of Lewis’s life differ from ours, perhaps his struggle with grief can be helpful for us. There is a changed perception of our lives, a loss of a sense of safety and security, grief over those lost or grieving with families who lost loved ones, and all of this leads to pain from these and other sources. A psychiatrist friend maintains that, “All change involves loss, and loss involves grief, and grief involves pain.” Since the events of September 11, 2001, there has been much change, loss, grief, and pain.
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