A life forever diminished: C.S. Lewis on the ‘new normal’ in the aftermath of grief

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“Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again.”

—C.S. Lewis, born 29 November 1898 in Belfast. Passage from A Grief Observed.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

Quotables 22 July 2024: Wisdom from Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and more

Illustration: Edwin Larson/National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Institution

‘An intelligent person never shares three things with anyone - Their innermost fears, past regrets, and ultimate excuse for showing up late’. - Mark Twain

‘The doors of wisdom are never shut’. - Benjamin Franklin, from ‘Poor Richard's Almanack’

‘One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.’ - C.S. Lewis, from ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’

‘Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it’. - Adlai Stevenson II

‘Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important’. - T.S. Eliot

‘It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It’s much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all’. - Sylvia Plath

‘When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind’. - C.S. Lewis

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.