Lewis’ Problem of Pain
Almost daily.
My dad speaks to me of goodbye, thanking me for caring for him — of a final separation that is drawing near.
Sometimes he feels it more than others, I see him squinting into the void, as though seeing death approach on the horizon.
He had a vagal response last Friday night… while our son was proposing a few states away and we were excitedly waiting to hear if the answer was yes.
If you have never witnessed a vagal response in an elderly person, I hope you never do. It looks like death — breathing halts, unresponsiveness cloaks their open eyes and body, a grey pallor settles in if it persists more than a minute or so.
My husband and I both thought he had passed. I was standing behind his wheelchair, my arms around him, one holding his forehead upright to open his airway, the other patting his chest trying to wake him, talking to him loudly. I hitch in a breath, cry, and keep calling him back.
C.S. Lewis writes in The Problem of Pain about the universal experience of grief in the reality of death. I see its title on my book shelf this morning and draw it out. I haven’t read it in an age.
Its first copyright was 1940, but its words are as fresh as if written yesterday and I feel led to put it next to my bible, to make it my company keeper as part of my morning devotions.
In the Preface C.S. Lewis speaks of the inability to write of death, as though one needed credentials to speak of such a thing.
I’m afraid we all have experience if we have lived for any time on this planet. Lewis further explains he means from a theologian’s perspective. He who has read more than I could ever imagine or dreamt of is hesitant to write an essay about pain.
And I feel that in my bones.
And from a Christian perspective. That seems to be his salient point and we haven’t even begun his book which attempts to address universal sorrow with our universal hope in Jesus Christ.
So, I will re-read it during this “long season” of letting go of my dad who isn’t defined by his dementia and post-stroke symptoms, but who is captive to it. And I, with him.
“I must add, too, that the only purpose of the book is to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; for the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.”
~ C. S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain)
My dad came round. He didn’t remember a thing about the episode.
And our son calls afterwards, “She didn’t say yes… she said absolutely.”
And His presence saturates the moment, His tincture assuaging our trembling hearts.
And God is good all the time.
