This Book I'm Reading

Well, actually, there are about 4 that I've got going right now.

But I picked up CS Lewis this weekend (yes, *that* CS Lewis, the Narnia one) "A Grief Observed." Yeah, yeah, go ahead, say what you want about the nonbeliever picking up a book by a Christian writer. Just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean that I don't believe in great writers who believe in God. What can I say? I'm a literature whore, a slut for the well-written word. One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, is a self-described "Jesusy" Christian.

A little background -- I was shocked by hard I was hit by Mark's death in July -- it actually plunged me into a deep, deep mourning. I thought I was depressed but came to realize that I was GRIEVING. And grief is something we, as a culture, treat like a head cold -- you know, you've had a couple of days to be sad, now get over it, move on, aren't you finished being sad, YET?

Why are we so uncomfortable with our own sadness and mourning? We're bombarded with messages that we are supposed to be happy all the time. And if we're not, then there must surely be something wrong with us, so take this pill -- no, this pill -- no, try this one! We fail to recognize that grief is a process to be gone through, not a thing to be discarded or distracted, or a disease to be cured by magic pills. We are so uncomfortable with others' sadness or depression or weltzschmerz or whatever you want to call it, that we WANT people to pop the little blue pills that will make them more appropriate. Well, I ask you this -- since when is it inappropriate to show that you are sad when you are sad? We have become so uncomfortable with the cycle and circles of our own emotional thermostats. Somehow, the belief has been perpetuated that the emotional temperature should always be 72 degrees and sunny, with no humidity.

Well, folks, I like weather. All kinds of weather. It reminds me I'm alive.

A week after his death, my sister went back to work. Simply because she did not know what else to do. Rattling around their house, in which they had lived for just one month, in which Mark was so happy to live because it wasn't an apartment, because he had a lawn to mow and a driveway of his own, was just too overwhelming for her. So she did what we women in our family do. We go to work. A few days in, one of her young co-workers said to her, "What's wrong, Carol? You seem so quiet today." (Oh the insensitivity of the young.)

"I'm not quiet. I'm mourning and in grief. Mark DIED. This isn't the flu. I'm not going to get over it in a week and have my life go back to normal. He DIED." I actually have to feel pretty bad for the kid. She probably felt terrible.

Anyhow, I picked up this book at Barnes & Noble -- there I was, lurking like a pervert in the Christianity section of the store, hoping not to see anyone I knew.

I flipped it open on the subway, and began to read:

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

My throat began to feel tight and breathing became difficult, and I could only put my head down and weep silently all the way to Lorimer Street.