Author David G. Hallman recently discussed a book he was given to review, Tear Soup – A Recipe for Healing After Loss. I don’t know the book but I understood his reservations about reviewing it at first, as it struck him as a children’s book.
He read it anyway and found it very a very powerful story that resonated with his own loss.
Likewise, after the death of my parents, everyone recommended C.S. Lewis’ book A Grief Observed. As you may have noticed *wink* I’m an atheist. This blog’s tag is “Grief without god” after all! So, I generally disregarded such advice. What could a very religious academic have to say to me about grief?
Like Hallman, I realized that part of my avoidance was due to prejudice (he saw Tear Soup as a children’s book, and I saw A Grief Observed as a religious book, and thus we distanced ourselves respectively). Eventually, I sat down with C.S. Lewis and read what he had to say.
It was moving, and beautiful, and touched me deeply. It remains one of my favorite books on grief I’ve ever read. Despite the many layers of religious discussion in the book, and Lewis’ strong belief in a god, his writing about loss was something I related to intimately. It helped me feel less alone at a time when I was stripped of everything I knew as “family.”
The lesson here is that grief, while an individual experience, is also universal. What children feel or what an atheist feels or what a devout religious person feels are all linked by that overwhelming sense of loss. Despite differences, what we can share overshadows what we do not have in common.
Don’t shut the door on a book, a song or a person because of those differences; you can hold true to your skepticism while appreciating and relating to the profound emotions that unite grievers everywhere. Keep yourself open to those experiences because we can never tell where they will lead. It might be just what you need.
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