The Pains Of Grief Are Universal

   Life is something we all are experiencing, but death is the devastating and unknown process that everyone will eventually go through.  Life is full of questions, but so is death. Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, the thought of dying one day stirs an anxious feeling in our stomachs.  Even though God created us in His image, we are all still different with different personalities, but two things are certain about the human race: we cannot escape death and the pain of grief is universal.
   As I reached the end of A Grief Observed, Lewis has come to the realization that death is a process in life and God will be there for you through the grieving process. The last paragraph of the book starts out by saying "How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back! She said not to me but to the chaplain, 'I am at peace with God'. She smiled, but not at me. Poi si torno all' eterna fontana."  The book ends with a quote from Dante's Paradise, which was written hundreds of years ago, that says 'Poi si torno all' eterna fontana.'  This quote translated means "Then she turned back to the eternal fountain".  In Dante's book, Paradise, he describes Beatrice looking at him for the last time in paradise and said " So I prayed, and as distant as she was, she smiled and gazed at me. Then she turned back to the eternal fountain."  Beatrice finally and forever turned away from the poet, whom she was guided to heaven toward the glory of God.  This paragraph seems to be C.S. Lewis' way of confessing his faith in the fact that there, in the presence of God, his wife, whose departure in death has been such a resolution to him, is now lost in the rapture of God.
   This book is truly life changing and relevant to anyone, no matter your religion, who is grieving over a loved one.  Madeleine L'Engle wrote the Forward to this book and said that this book "Gives us permission to admit our own doubts, or own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are a part of the soul's growth."  In the end, Lewis doesn't alleviate his grief, but he is more at peace with God.  This book is so remarkable because it allows the reader relate their pains associated with grief to Lewis' pains from grief.  If you are debating on reading this book because you assume his devotion to God would influence his way of overcoming grief the "christian way" and would not be relevant to the way you might feel,don't put the book down because you might be surprised.