Observing Grief: 4

In the last chapter of A Grief Observed, Lewis admits that grief is, "like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape." If you've grieved over someone's death, you know the image Lewis is casting. Happiness almost feels a little haunted, but time evaporates the wetness from some of the tears, albeit gradual, "like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight," says Lewis.

Healing does come, though it is snared by the inadequacies of our five senses and the trappings of them. Lewis knows that Joy is more than his memory, more than the photograph that links his mind to a part of her. He knows too that Jesus is more than the wafer at Sunday's service and more than he can fathom.

It might seem odd that Lewis entangles Joy's passing with his interpretation of things like the Incarnation when God broke down all the ideas of how Messiah might come, but he lands at a simple statement: "All reality is iconoclastic."

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