For Unending Love: October 2012

Sorry for not posting for a while. I experienced a minor setback in my own search for unending love. No worries though, because I am still moving forward in a positive direction. My personal experience has left me with a new phrase though: La Douleur Exquise.

It's French and isn't translatable into English. It is basically the heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone that you can't have. It is not the same as "unrequited love" because that describes a relationship state, but not a state of mind. The phrase really defines the emotionally heartache, specifically of the one who's love is not being reciprocated.

How this isn't depressing, but I thought it just sounded so eloquent and beautiful. It actually made me feel better knowing that there is a word that perfectly depicts how I am feeling.

C.S. Lewis is beloved by for his tales about the mythical land of Narnia. His life was sheltered until Joy Davidman came along. Their love story is perhaps the greatest story of his life.

Clive Staples Lewis is known to generations of children for his classic novels about the magical land of Narnia. Christians also revere his writing; it has enlightened thousands on the topics of grief, suffering and the basics of Christianity. Science fiction fans have found his writing satisfying, too. Yet, perhaps the greatest story from C.S. Lewis isn't one of those he wrote but the one that he lived.

Lewis was born just outside of Belfast, North Ireland on November 29th, 1898. He was the second and last child of his parents, Flora and Albert Lewis. His older brother, Warren "Warnie" Lewis would be his life long friend and companion. While still a child, Lewis developed a dislike for his name and renamed himself Jacksie, later shortened to Jack. To all who knew him, he was Dr. Lewis or Jack Lewis.

When just nine years old, Lewis lost his mother to cancer. Prior to her death, Lewis considered himself a lukewarm Christian, but lost his faith along with his mother. For years he considered himself an agnostic. He later became a dedicated Christian and Christian apologist.

Lewis was educated in a series of boarding schools and was not a particularly successful student. He did well enough, though to be accepted at Oxford, where after only one term, he left school to serve his country in World War I. At the close of the war, he returned to finish at Oxford, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. He took up as a substitute lecturer at Oxford in Medieval Literature, eventually becoming a regular lecturer. Yet, after 30 years of lecturing at Oxford with no offer of professorship, he accepted a position at Cambridge as Professor in 1955.

Lewis's life through these years as spent as a bachelor. He and his brother shared a home and Jack's days were filled with teaching and writing. In 1952, he met the woman that would become his wife. He was 54 years old.

Joy Davidman Gresham was an award winning poet and mother of two boys. She came to know Lewis first through his Christian writings and later through his Narnia tales, which her boys were fond of. She struck up a correspondence with Lewis that became a warm friendship. During a 1952 trip to London in search of a publisher for her poetry and a home for her family, Gresham asked Lewis to meet her for tea. He and his brother accepted.

From the start, Jack was taken with Joy. Her candor and willingness to compete with him in battles of wits made her a welcome presence in his life. Yet to say that he loved her from the beginning would be to presume. It's unlikely that this dedicated bachelor would have recognized loving Joy immediately let alone admit to it. And, there was the issue that Joy was married, although unhappily.

Joy's husband, Bill Gresham was an acclaimed author, too. The Greshams were not happily married due for the most part to Bill's drinking and womanizing. Joy left Bill in 1954 when he professed his love for another woman but graciously invited his wife to join him and his lover in a ménage a' trois. Taking her sons, she returned to London and rented an apartment, intending to make England her new home.

England had other ideas, however and by 1956 was refusing to renew Joy's visa, which would have made it necessary for her to leave the country. She had maintained her friendship with Jack, and it seems that a gentle love was beginning to bloom. She asked him to marry her and extend his citizenship to her and her children. He agreed but the couple was married in a civil ceremony rather than a Christian ceremony. Jack may have been frightened by his feelings for this woman and not been willing to surrender to loving her.

The couple did not immediately take up residence together. This happened somewhat gradually. More and more, Joy and her children stayed at Jack and Warnie's home, The Kilns.

Jack's feelings for Joy seem to have taken him over when it was discovered that Joy had a particularly virulent case of cancer. The future looked grim, there was virtually no hope of a remission and Joy was given only weeks at best to live. While she lay in the hospital, dying, Jack found a priest willing to perform a Christian marriage service for this divorced woman and her legal husband.

Miraculously, Joy's cancer did go into a remission. By 1957 she was able to go home to The Kilns and get around in a wheelchair. She progressed to crutches and later a cane. By 1958, the couple, wildly in love with each other, were finally able to take a honeymoon of sorts, to Ireland. It looked as though Joy may even recover completely, so well she appeared.

Jack, Joy and her sons were allowed two full years of respite from Joy's cancer. But, in late 1959, the cancer returned and this time it would not let loose of her. Despite treatments and drugs, her cancer spread and it became apparent that Joy would die. This she wanted to do at home, with her children, Warnie and her beloved Jack near her.

Though it probably drained the last of her strength, Joy convinced Jack to take her to Greece for a holiday. They spent much of April of 1960 in Greece and though it taxed her, it made Joy happy. They returned home and her cancer progressed rapidly. Surgery was attempted to no avail. Joy again returned home to die.

Jack was at her side constantly and begged her not to leave him. He wrestled with letting her go, wishing to keep her with him even in the face of the horrible pain she suffered. Finally he surrendered to the inevitable and told Joy to go on. She died July 13th, 1960. Jack was devastated by grief. While he was able to carry on the duties of life after losing Joy, it's clear that he was a changed man. He poured out his grief on paper, turning his own loss into comfort for thousands. His book, "A Grief Observed" published first under a pseudonym in 1961, delves deeply into his personal loss, but the profound insight into the nature of grief that Lewis pours out in the volume transcends his own loss and speaks to the heart of any who have lost a spouse or partner.

Clive Staples Lewis died November 22, 1963. The world would not know for days of his death, it was overshadowed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy on the same day. This world lost tremendous genius in those two deaths that day.

C.S. Lewis was an extraordinary writer and he gifted generations to come with his works. His faith and his willingness to share his own experience live on and entertain and comfort someone every day.