C.S. Lewis does few brilliant things in A Grief Observed. Highest in my estimation is the use of questions with very few answers. He has a curious mind and allows it to ponder all the awful Whys, What ifs, How coulds, and Whens of his bereavement.
At no point does he try to universalize the process of grief. Even for himself, he doesn’t claim to find consistent ways of moving through the journey. When a turn in the valley appears to mimic a previous pass, he recognizes that it is in a different sequence and therefore carries fresh meaning, pain, healing, or various mixes of all. Each day is particularly exhausting, sometimes in the excitement, sometimes in the grinding, and sometimes in the slog.
It’s a book unabashedly about an individual grief and, in that way, more honest than most of the literature on the subject I’ve yet come across.
God bless,
Jason