{"id":303,"date":"2011-05-25T05:29:19","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T12:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.205.130\/?p=303"},"modified":"2011-05-25T05:29:19","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T12:29:19","slug":"grief-grace-and-grattitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/?p=303","title":{"rendered":"Grief, Grace, and Grattitude"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Sharon’s Blog:<\/em><\/p>\n

I posted the following just four weeks after Lewis died.\u00a0 He died two years ago today.\u00a0 It seems, on an emotional level, that I was in a kind of deer-in-the headlight catatonic trance for at least a year.<\/p>\n

And now these\u00a0last\u00a0twelve months\u00a0have been an uphill battle emotionally with lots of valleys and even abysses along the way.\u00a0 The trance\u00a0gone,\u00a0the feelings\u00a0have been\u00a0very raw.\u00a0 Looking back and reading the words I wrote in June 2009, it is hard to believe I could write them\u00a0at all.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Their source, of course, was in\u00a0the truth of the relationship Lewis and I enjoyed together, his loving presence<\/em> in my life.\u00a0 That presence<\/strong> <\/em>cannot be taken from me and will always endure.\u00a0\u00a0And that presence<\/em> has been an essential force in\u00a0my healing through grief.<\/p>\n

How can it be that the one whom I have lost is the one who also keeps\u00a0me going?\u00a0\u00a0 This paradox has become\u00a0my most\u00a0abiding comfort\u2026..and reflects the one universal and essential truth\u2026that God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.\u00a0\u00a0DEUS CARITAS EST.<\/p>\n

Four Weeks (June 2009)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It has been nearly a month since Lewis experienced his earthly death.\u00a0 He died of heart failure.\u00a0 It was totally unexpected, undiagnosed, and as best I can remember his symptoms had been scant for those of us who loved him dearly.\u00a0 That he died of \u201ctoo big a heart\u201d is perfectly fitting for the man I loved.\u00a0 I was the largest benefactor of his unreasonable and sometimes delirious ability to love unconditionally, I was his fierce defender and I was his most potent critic, often expressing dismay at how much he was giving of himself to me and others when he was wearing thin and becoming stretched at his seams.<\/em><\/p>\n

His seams, as I knew them, were very transparent.\u00a0 You could feel when he was getting cranky.\u00a0 He was not that way very often, but when he was his face muscles would stiffen\u00a0and he would firm his lips and hold them tightly together to prevent himself from saying something he would regret.\u00a0 Being warned,\u00a0I would wait for his sigh, his long relaxed\u00a0breath, and then we would begin to communicate in some other way.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is so wonderful to remember about him is how extraordinarily happy he would become while observing and interacting with life and its pulses, its unique gifts of beauty and intricate design, and its simple eloquence.<\/em><\/p>\n

He loved collecting feathers from our two ringneck doves.\u00a0 He preferred the smallest ones, pure white and symetrical and kept them in bottles and plastic containers for display.\u00a0 He\u00a0kept an assortment of polished stones that he again would deposit in various preferred places in our home and office\u2013some he\u00a0found in his\u00a0 daily walks and some he would collect through his travels here and there.\u00a0\u00a0 He also collected seeds and nuts\u00a0of all kinds and had them displayed on his office shelfs where he could share them with\u00a0clients and describe his affinity for them in his daily sharing and work. <\/em><\/p>\n

He was a reader of books and literature of all kinds.\u00a0\u00a0 Complex works of scientific scholarship, books of wisdom, all kinds of science fiction and fantasy, religious and theological writings and scholarship, novels, how-to books, historical understandings and works of the ancients were a part of\u00a0his everyday interest.\u00a0\u00a0 I cannot tell you how sad I am to have lost my companion who had such an encylopedic mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of his beloved clients is a woman who is a writer of science fiction and fantasy.\u00a0 He always looked forward to his\u00a0time with her, a discussion of her current writing struggles, and he much enjoyed\u00a0providing her encouragement in her craft. <\/em><\/p>\n

He was very intentional in his life.\u00a0 I was the most favored recipient of his kindly intentions.\u00a0 During the last two years of his life he was slowly working to program me to fasten my seatbelt and harness it safely around the bottom of my mid-section as a matter of habit.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take much to tip me to the side of feeling irritated by his trying to direct me, so it became a delicate balance and he was\u00a0very good at it.\u00a0 He intentionally responded so as to increase my patience and other character parameters in much the same\u00a0way.\u00a0 Fortunately, we were both inclined to laughter and prankishness, so he didn\u2019t have to help me there.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the last five years we were sharing an office daily.\u00a0 Many of my clients, and\u00a0certainly members of our staff,\u00a0took object lessons from the way he would deal with my excessiveness and enjoyed his frank and sometimes capricious repertoire.<\/em><\/p>\n

It added humility to our lives.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have missed him these weeks in every possible way that can be a part of one\u2019s daily encounter.\u00a0 His presence, his helpfulness, his touch, his light snoring, his companionship,\u00a0his joviality, his principled rhetoric and playful expressions,\u00a0his ability to keep our home and office running without breakdown for want of lightbulb or paper and most of all I miss his exorbitant love.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know from being his life-long companion that he stepped into the heavenly kingdom and God\u2019s side without a scratch or even the smallest of pauses.\u00a0 He had been a devoted journeyman apprentice of God\u2019s plan and sought to walk in the Light everyday and in every way.\u00a0 This gives me the most comfort:\u00a0 that he and God are on the same\u00a0\u201d line\u201d \u00a0listening to me as I ask for help and guidance each day.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes it is quite a conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know that there are others in God\u2019s presence, too, listening and encouraging each of us mortals as we struggle with our loves, losses and lemons. <\/em><\/p>\n

We are persuaded\u00a0to move forward, to not flinch from the journey, to enjoy each moment of our passage and to keep God\u2019s dream for humankind\u00a0as our vision, as our muscle and our innermost hope.\u00a0\u00a0 We may cry and feel the pain of our fears and demons but we will\u00a0always be able to reemerge in the Light.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the first shaker<\/a> (1807) hymn with notes\u00a0tells us:<\/em><\/p>\n

The heavens of glory are our Destination.\u00a0 We\u2019re quickly advancing to the that happy shore.\u00a0 We\u2019re traveling on in the regeneration.\u00a0 And when we get through\u00a0we will sorrow no more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Sharon’s Blog: I posted the following just four weeks after Lewis died.\u00a0 He died two years ago today.\u00a0 It seems, on an emotional level, that I was in a kind of deer-in-the headlight catatonic trance for at least a year. And now these\u00a0last\u00a0twelve months\u00a0have been an uphill battle emotionally with lots of valleys and … Continue reading “Grief, Grace, and Grattitude”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewismoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}