Indeed, the tide had turned. In the weeks that followed, Joy was often bedridden and again in terrible pain, but she was not yet willing to give in. As part of this determination not to give in, Jack and Joy booked a trip to Greece with Roger Green and his wife, June. As the departure date of Sunday, April 3, 1960, approached, despite her continued pain, Joy was more determined than ever to embark on this final adventure.
The two couples flew to Athens from London, the plane making two stops along the way to refuel. The following day Jack and Joy climbed the Acropolis, where they sat and took in the wonder and beauty of the Parthenon. They also made a day trip to Mycenae, where Jack was awestruck by the ruins, and another day trip to the Gulf of Corinth, before flying on to the island of Rhodes, which Jack categorized as an “earthly paradise.” On Rhodes they attended Easter service at a Greek Orthodox cathedral. Jack was so impressed by the service and the atmosphere of the place that he declared that he preferred the Greek Orthodox liturgy to the liturgy of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England.
From Rhodes they traveled on to Crete, where again they enjoyed exploring the local history and culture. As they traveled, their evenings were filled with long, relaxed dinners, during which they sampled all of the local delicacies.
Finally, after eleven days away, on April 14, Jack and Joy arrived back in London where a car was waiting to drive them back to The Kilns. As they were being driven to Oxford, Jack marveled at how Joy had handled herself on the trip. Despite her obvious pain, she never let it intrude on the enjoyment of others and, given her circumstance, was willing to give most things a go. Indeed, Jack decided that he had just passed some of the happiest days of his life, and he was elated that the two of them had managed to defy the odds and enjoy one last trip together.
But the exertion of the trip had taken its toll on Joy’s health, and she never fully recovered her vitality. For the next three months Joy was in and out of the hospital for treatment for her cancer. She had one breast removed, but after that she refused any further surgery.
Despite the best efforts of the doctors at the hospital, by July 13, 1960, it was evident that the end for Joy was near. Jack had David and Douglas called home from boarding school, and then he stood vigil at his wife’s bedside. “If you can, if it is allowed,” he told Joy quietly, “come to me when I too am on my deathbed.”
Joy smiled. “Allowed! Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I’d break it into bits,” she replied, after which she asked Jack not to spend money on an expensive coffin for her and to have her body cremated. With those matters out of the way, she said, “I am at peace with God.” These were the last words that Joy Lewis ever spoke.
Joy’s funeral service was held on July 18, 1960. Jack had always kept his private life very separate from his public life, and perhaps as a result of this, only a handful of people came to pay their last respects.
Following the service Jack returned to The Kilns a lonely, heartbroken widower. He didn’t know what to do with himself, so he did the only thing he knew how to do. He picked up a pen and started to write—this time about his grief.
Chapter 17
In the Shadowlands
Jack poured out his feelings onto the page in what would become the book titled A Grief Observed. In the deeply personal book, Jack described his feelings following Joy’s death. He noted that through observing and seeking to understand the grief he was feeling, he was better able to control it. He also noted that in enduring such a deep and intense grief he had recovered the true essence of Joy. While she had passed on physically, Joy was now more alive within him than she had been in life.
When he was finished writing, Jack did not know what to do with the manuscript he had created. On the one hand the writing was so intensely honest that he felt sure it would help others come to terms with their own grief, but because it was so honest he did not want anyone to know he had written it. It would be too embarrassing for him to bare his soul so publicly, and he cringed at the type of personal “fan mail” such a book might generate. In the end, he arranged to have the book published under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk and swore his publisher to secrecy to protect his identity.
Because A Grief Observed did not have the name C. S. Lewis on its cover, the book did not sell well. Still, Jack didn’t care. Writing the book had given him the courage to face life again. Even so, Jack had to admit that Joy’s death, and the memories it recalled of his mother’s death so long ago, had permanently changed him. He felt old and tired. Instead of taking the train to Cambridge, he now often took a taxi, and he no longer looked forward to the weekends as he once had.
Within a year of Joy’s death, Jack realized that he too was ill. His prostate was malfunctioning, putting stress on his kidneys and heart. Dr. Havard put him on a strict diet and instructed him to sleep sitting up in a chair and not to climb stairs or overexert himself in any way. When all of those measures did not bring relief, Jack started a round of blood transfusions, which he found very trying. He remarked in a letter, “I’ve just had a blood transfusion and am feeling very drowsy. Dracula must have led a horrid life.”
Throughout this trying time, Jack kept writing. The Four Loves, published in March 1960, was selling well, and Jack watched in delight as subsequent editions of many of his other books rolled off the presses.
By the beginning of 1962 Jack felt much better, and he was able to return to his duties at Magdalene College, Cambridge, for the spring term. He also liked to go for long drives in the countryside with his friends and to reread many of the classic books that he had loved since he was a boy.
During this time Jack received a letter from a young man in the United States by the name of Walter Hooper. Walter wanted to visit Jack and interview him for a book in a series of books on English authors. Jack wrote back to him, “Certainly I shall be happy to see you when you visit England. But I feel very strongly that a man is ill advised to write a book on any living author. There is bound to be at least one person, and there are probably several, who inevitably know more about the subject than ordinary research will discover. Far better write about the unanswering dead.”
In September Jack received some bad news. Bill Gresham, David and Douglas’s father, had been diagnosed with cancer. Rather than suffer through the pain of a slow death, Bill had taken his own life. Now Jack’s stepsons had neither of their natural parents left. They had only him, their ailing, aging stepfather. It was not the best arrangement for two teenage boys, but Jack determined to make the most of the situation. He made a new will, leaving most of his assets in a trust for the boys so that they could finish their education. The remainder of his assets were to be put into a trust for Warren to use for as long as he lived. The will also stipulated that when Warren died, Jack’s literary estate should belong to David and Douglas Gresham.
Jack’s health continued to improve throughout 1962 and on into 1963. Jack was able to keep up with his classes at Cambridge, as well as with his reading and meeting with his friends.
In early 1963, Walter Hooper, the young American who had written to Jack the year before, finally came to visit. Jack liked him right away. Walter was a bright and insightful young man, and the two men soon fell into conversation at The Kilns. After two hours of talking, Jack escorted Walter to the bus stop to catch the bus back into Oxford, stopping along the way for a drink at Jack’s favorite local pub, the Ampleforth Arms. Before Walter boarded the bus, Jack asked him to come back and visit him on Monday.
At their next meeting Jack gave Walter a copy of his latest manuscript, Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer. Walter read the manuscript and discussed it with Jack on their third meeting. Soon Jack and Walter were meeting regularly three times a week. Jack found the meetings stimulating and Walter to be very helpful, so helpful, in fact, that in July Jack asked him to be his private secretary at The Kilns. Walter agreed, though he would have to return to the United States in September to take care of some pressing obligations, but as soon as he had, he would come straight back to Oxford.
In July 1963, Jack became ill again and was once more admitted to the hospital, where he suffered a mild heart attack. It was obvious to Jack that his teaching days were over, and he tendered his resignation from Magdalene College. The journey to and from Cambridge was just too exhausting, and now he began to wonder just how much longer he might have to live.
Despite the fact that he felt the end of his life was imminent, this was not a gloomy time for Jack. He declared it to be a happy period in his life. Joy’s death had made heaven all the more real to him, and he was content to be coming to the end of his life. “Yes, autumn is really the best of the seasons,” he wrote to a friend. “And I’m not sure that old age isn’t the best part of life. But, of course, like autumn it doesn’t last.”
It seemed that while everyone was bracing himself for Jack’s death, it was not yet his time to go. After three weeks in the hospital, Jack was well enough to return to The Kilns, where a male nurse looked after him while Walter did his best to manage Jack’s affairs.
When Jack had been hospitalized, Warren was away vacationing in Ireland. When he had not returned to The Kilns by mid-August, Jack’s friend George Sayer went to Ireland to retrieve him. But Warren would not come back. He said that he could not face watching Jack’s health decline.
As September and the time of Walter’s departure for the United States approached, Warren gathered up his courage and finally returned to The Kilns, ready to help look after his brother. Jack was glad to have him back and settled into a pleasant routine of resting, reading, entertaining visitors, and drinking endless cups of tea with Warren. Warren helped Jack write letters and put his affairs in order.
During October, as the trees lost their leaves, Jack began to lose his grip on life. Warren, who had feared his brother’s end so much, wrote in his journal, “Yet those last weeks were not unhappy ones. Joy had left us, and once more as in bygone days we had no one but each other to turn to for comfort. The wheel had come full circle. Again we were together in a new ‘little end room,’ shutting out from our talk the ever present knowledge that the holidays were ending, and a new term fraught with unknown possibilities awaited us both.”
Meanwhile, old faces began to reappear in Jack’s life. In November, J. R. R. Tolkien came to visit Jack, though understandably their meeting was strained.
On Friday, November 22, 1963, the end finally came. Jack was calm and in little pain when he retired to his bed for an afternoon nap. At 5:30 Warren heard a thud and went to see what had happened. He found Jack lying on the floor, unconscious. Warren rushed to his side, but a few minutes later his brother slipped away. His kidneys had finally failed.
Surprisingly, the master storyteller’s death was overshadowed by another death that captivated the world that day. Thousands of miles away from Oxford, across the Atlantic Ocean in Dallas, Texas, the president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated as he made his way through the city’s streets in a motorcade.
In keeping with what his brother would have wanted, Warren requested that Jack’s funeral be for close friends and family only. Maureen Moore and David and Douglas Gresham followed the coffin out of Headington Quarry Church and into the adjoining graveyard, where C. S. Lewis was buried. It was November 26, 1963, three days before what would have been Jack’s sixty-fifth birthday.
The seventh book of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, ends with a scene in which Lucy Pevensie confronts Aslan with the suspicion that she and her parents are dead. Aslan replies, “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”
