Grief Observed Quotations

Cut one off, or cut both off simultaneously. Either way, mustn't the conversation stop? (p.14)

Lewis suggests that the particular nature of the intimate, individualistic conversation between the beloved and the lover ends upon death. He believes in eternal life. But Lewis sees death as transforming the nature of the dead person, and so although his wife may be with God (a common comfort spoken by others) this does not mean his relationship with his wife can be the same after Lewis dies. Whether two lovers die simultaneously, or at different times, like Lewis and his wife, there is a stoppage of the earthly type of conversation and happiness that makes ordinary, earthly marriage so pleasant.

A say their landfalls, not their arrivals. (p.34)

Lewis speaks of Joy and his mother's landfalls on the other side of death as haunting him. He paints a dark picture of the sea of life and death, not because he believes that the ends of his loved ones are dark, but because of the way he sees the 'other side,' from the point-of-view of a living person in a state of grief.

They say, 'The coward dies many times'; so does the beloved. (p.57)

Throughout A Grief Observed, Lewis rehashes the reasons that his wife was taken from him too soon. He cannot understand why he was given the gift of his wife's life, only to have that life taken from him. Like a coward envisions his own death many times before he dies, so the lover of someone who is dead envisions the death of the beloved, and speculates again and again about why it occurred, and what is God's plan in terms of allowing human beings to suffer so much.

Poi si torno all' eterna fontana. (p.76)

At the end of her life, Lewis' wife said she was at peace with God. Lewis makes this phrase her eulogy because it is reminiscent of Dante. Like Dante's great love Beatrice, who died young and accepted her early death in a way Dante could not at first, Lewis hopes that his love for his wife will lead him to a better understanding of the divine plan.