Cyril.

[Scarlett Rose]

C.S Lewis once said that no one ever told him that grief felt so much like fear. What C.S Lewis also was not told was that grief is chest pain and short breaths and great, big wailing. Grief is the tightness of the throat. And grief is barely bearable - I feel like I'm dying too, I'm drowning with thoughts of him and thingsIshouldhavedone and thingsIcouldhavedonebetter.

There's a lovely little old man who used to go to my chuch who is currently sitting in a bed in a nursing home not far from me - I suspect that if you saw him, he would look pale and thin and worn and sad and lonely and bitter - a far cry from the encouraging, uplifting and positive man he once was. Now I just sit there beside him (his "great, great, great grandaughter" as he used to tell all the other oldies) and hold his hand and cry silently and kiss his forehead everytime I leave, wondering if I'll ever see him again.

[Justine Dunn]

Roxanne's comment below sums this up perfectly.

[Joey Delgado]

I always thought grief presents not just as emotional pain, but physical pan, as well. This come across nicely in your six. Very moving. Thanks for this.

[Keturah Jones]

Nice one. I love CS Lewsis, too. Grieving is hard and sad but the depth of love is sometimes most clearly found in grief.

[Gita]

After reading this twice, I realized that I like it better with the two paragraphs flopped. I wondered if you wrote it as is, or if at some point you moved the bottom half to the top.  The bottom is the powerful and personal statement, which explains why we are being told what CS Lewis thought. Just a thought.

Lovely writing and your description "pale and thin and worn and sad and lonely and bitter" is a list that we all recognize when we see people whose last years are spent in a warehouse. Nice job.

 

[Roxanne]

Beautiful and beautifully sad.

[Robert McEvily]

So well told.  Welcome back.