â??No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.â? With his first line, CS Lewisâ??s A Grief Observed reacquaints his reader with the physiology of mourning; he brings into each mouth the common taste of private and personal loss. â??I know something of this,â? you think. Even if you have not experienced a â??front lineâ? bereavement, such as the loss of partner, parent or child, you have certainly lost something you value: a marriage or a job, an internal organ or some aspect of mind or body that defines who you are.
Perhaps you have just lost yourself on your way through life, lost your chances or your reputation or your integrity, or chosen to lose bad memories by pushing them into a personal and portable tomb. Perhaps you have merely wasted time, and seethe with frustration because you canâ??t recall it. The pattern of all losses mirrors the pattern of the gravest losses. Disbelief is followed by numbness, numbness by distraction, despair, exhaustion. Your former life still seems to exist, but you canâ??t get back to it; there is a glimpse in dreams of those peacock lawns and fountains, but youâ??re fenced out, and each morning you wake up to the loss over again.
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