TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On the lessons learned about grieving.
24 September 1960
As to how I take sorrow, the answer is ‘In nearly all the possible ways.’ Because, as you probably know, it isn’t a state but a process. It keeps on changing—like a winding road with quite a new landscape at each bend. Two curious discoveries I have made. The moments at which you call most desperately and clamorously to God for help are precisely those when you seem to get none. And the moments at which I feel nearest to Joy are precisely those when I mourn her least. Very queer. In both cases a clamorous need seems to shut one off from the thing needed. No one ever told me this. It is almost like ‘Don’t knock and it shall be opened to you.’ I must think it over.
My youngest stepson is the greatest comfort to me. My brother is still away in Ireland.
• From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
• Compiled in Yours, Jack
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