I'm nearly finished listening to Neil Peart’s book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road. (All of his books are currently free on Audible). The book recounts his travels following the death of his wife and ten months earlier his daughter. I can say that this is the other book I would bookend my grief journey with. The first was an essay and one I always tell those who ask, even those who don’t, is CS Lewis’s A Grief Observed written under the pseudonym NW Clerk. Just to be clear it is not like there hasn’t been a shit load of books, articles, essays, and podcasts consumed on this topic. These two hold everything I embrace about love, loss, and grief in place.
I read Lewis’s essay shortly after Donna’s death. Many friends gave or recommended other books, etc. Which I read. I am not sure how I found this essay but it has remained with me.
In A Grief Observed Lewis’s wife recently died. He explores and wrestles with his grief while questioning his Christianity and God. Published in 1960. It was adapted into a play Shadowlands and subsequently a film. (Did not know) The film Shadowlands is available on YouTube. Here
Lewis as you know is a writer (The Chronicles of Narnia, The Space Trilogy, and more). I have read The Chronicles and was struck by the beauty of the story and its subtle meanings about life. Lewis taught English literature at Oxford and Cambridge and is a Christian Apologetics. No doubt a real academic.
I was overwhelmed by Lewis’s capturing exactly what I was feeling in the the darkness that consumed me. This essay became a lamp shining onto the path which I realized was my grief journey. It also became the entry point for my examination of grief, death, love, and loss. Lewis set the baseline for me for my grief. Maybe grief in general.
Lewis's language, images, and arguments were academic, clear, searching, and gave form to my grief early on. I know you can argue that there is a bit of imprinting going on here. I am sure. I read it early. I didn’t know shit.
As I reread A Grief Observed Lewis’s voice it less about the days, the moments, the memories, and more about his mind, thoughts, and the wrangling with love, loss, and grief. Lewis will present a moment with others and look at it clearly in a description that resided in his mind his measure of what that grief moment feels like. That is what my take away was this is what grief feels like written by a master who questions the very essence of his loss and his God.
"Reading A Grief Observed is to share not only in C. S. Lewis’s grief but in his understanding of love, and that is richness indeed.” 1988 Forward by Madeleine L’Engle
The quote below perfectly captures those early days of loss and is accurate later when your memories come in waves.
"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.”
In the end I carried Lewis’s words with me as sign posts on my grief journey. I continued to read more books, articles, platform posts, and listened to podcasts A Grief Observed became a baseline for addressing my grief and was offered to help others with their grief work.
Listening to Neil Peart’s book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road I realized it holds the same level of relevance for my grief journey as did Lewis’s A Grief Observed. The former was read early in my grief journey. The later just now, late in my grief journey. Both were written following the death of loved ones.
Peart tells his grief journey though a journey. It’s a travel book about grief. Along for the journey with Peart I learned about his grief and revisited mine. Not that I don’t frequently hang out with my grief. Peart wrote the following:
"I remember thinking, "How does anyone survive something like this? And if they do, what kind of person comes out the other end?" I didn't know, but throughout that dark time of grief, sorrow, desolation, and complete despair, something in me seemed determined to carry on. Something would come up.”
I too was thinking along my grief journey that something would come up. I was hopping something would come up. I made things come up. The memoir “Donna, A Photo Memoir of Love and Loss” happened. I forced myself to travel. Unlike Peart I did not find great knowledge in leaving my house or moving. (We all grieve differently don’t we?) When I did leave and travel it was bookended by at the start 'why am I doing this?' In the middle 'this is fun'. Once home 'what did I gain?' I kept moving. The gym, cycling, cooking, remodeling the apartment, dinner with friends, and more. Like Peart I valued my time alone to reflect. I learned that reading his journey.
Peart makes a very valid point when he notes that even if you get through your grief you carry the scars with you. I will add forever. I think that is what Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road means, Peart’s journey his ‘grief work’ is less about his journey and more about grief is a shit life and hurts. Which it is Peart won’t deny that. His journey in Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road is about the gathering of knowledge and understanding. It is about finding comfort in your forever scars.
I read both these books at different times. That may be the reason each one offers up something different. Lewis was all about what I will face. He set that up, his work is about what he faced. I learned what I will face. Peart read just now, late in my grief work/journey is a reflection of his grief work. For me it became an exercise for my reflection. Not that I do not do that all the fucking time. Peart words, journey, and narrative smoothed the edges of my grief work and reflection. Made me stop to consider more about movement while relishing, cherishing, and smiling at my scars.
I ain’t Peart nor Lewis. In some small way I am telling my grief journey first for myself (isn’t that why we write) and for others. What to expect and what you may learn from my journey is. Don’t we all do that since we all grieve differently. Tell our grief journey. Share our grief work for others? Grief is an expanding market.
In the end. Or at least today, in my grief I discovered the depth of compassion and love that resides within me. The wound of grief allowed light to enter and illuminate that.
What bookends of your grief journey?