Hello,
It's Sunita here,
Grief.
The forbidden/must be denied/ignored/not acknowledged past a period of short and allowable time, or better still, hurried through emotion, of our culture.
We bumble our way through expressing our sympathies to those who have lost a loved one. Often, as the onlooker of the sufferer of grief we wonder, should I say something? Or maybe I should not mention their loss, as it might bring up their pain.
The writer, C.S.Lewis journaled about his grief on losing his wife to cancer. They had met and married later in life and enjoyed an exceptionally rich, and close relationship. So it would come as no surprise that he felt deep pain on her passing.
‘A Grief Observed’ is a collection of his raw reflections of the experience of grief following her death. His brutal honesty about the sharpness, and numbness of this experience, and exploration of his crushing pain give the reader an entry into a world that is inhabited by one who is deluged with the immediate, then gradually, intermediate nature of grieving and bereavement.
Of course, it is his experience. Which does not extend to, or speak to everyone’s experience of loss, but I found tremendous comfort in his words. The wildness of feeling undeniably, and what at that time, feels irrevocably lost, confused, bewildered, and in actual physical agony on the loss of someone who you feel deeply connected to is natural. He made it bearable by putting it on the pages of four journals, and documenting the trajectory of a process that is circular, a vortex, a straight line, and a wave- all in an unpredictable, but expected pattern, with a regularity that can be banked on.
Grief.
Grief on losing a person. A family. A friendship. A pet. A connection. A belief. A dream. A possibility. A figment of our imagination…
Grief.
The curse, and privilege, of being human.
Until next time,
Take care of yourself,
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