“Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” - C. S. Lewis in “The Four Loves”

When I am retired, I know I will work on refining my ideas about love. I think often about this most important of my feelings, and I’ve been making notes for some years now that I hope I can turn into an essay, or series of essays, about love. I am also at a point in my life when I have been dealing with the inevitable loss that we all face as our parents and other older loved ones die. I have lived enough years to face the tragedy that comes with the death of friends and loved ones taken from us too soon. I have begun to face the loss of friends and loved ones of about my own age. For me this question of love and loss is central to the choices we face between despair and joy. Central to the process of seeking peace in our hearts and minds.

When I saw this quote from C.S. Lewis, I felt an immediate response. I knew that I both agreed and disagreed with this idea. I agree with the the obvious wisdom of not tying our happiness to impermanent things like material possessions, or fame. I disagree with the idea that we should not let our happiness depend on the loved ones we are bound to lose in life. I looked again, briefly, at Lewis’ wonderful book, “The Four Loves”, seeking the context in which he wrote these words.

Lewis is writing about Saint Augustine's desolation at the death of a friend, and disagrees with the saint’s conclusion that we must not love what we might lose. He writes compellingly against the idea that we should avoid this risk. Instead, he encourages us to accept the risk, vulnerability, and loss that come with loving. Only through being open and vulnerable to love are we able to realize our full humanity, and our most profound relationship with the divine; however we experience that aspect of reality.

I agree with this so completely. I choose to love as richly and fully as I am capable of loving, and to seek a greater closeness with my beloveds always. I find that this brings me ever greater opportunities for joy, intimacy, and love in my life. It brings me closer not only to my loved ones, but also to myself, and to my own sense of the divine. My wonder at the immensity of the night sky, of the delicate intricacy of the smallest flower, and of the inexpressible beauty in the eyes of my beloveds grows beyond measure when I open my heart fully to love.

I gratefully accept the risk and vulnerability of loving in this way. I accept that the more powerful the love, the more powerful the grief I will face. Some of this grieving will find me on my journey through life, as it has already, and some will be waiting for me at the end. I've talked with my family about this, and shared that at the end of my life I expect to face great loss. I will have survived people I love deeply, and I will be leaving behind people I love deeply. There is no escaping this and I accept that fact.

Part of choosing love is living with the grief of loss. The process of grieving is a journey that we each face alone, and still one in which we can be comforted and strengthened by the presence of our loved ones and community. While there are moments of profound loneliness in grieving, and there can be long stretches of sadness at our separation from our lost beloveds, we are also joined by the fact that all who love deeply will live through these times of grief. May we offer, and accept, the hand of friendship, the embrace of comfort, and the shared strength of love and understanding in our times of grieving.

The scale and scope of my loss will be in proportion to the scale and scope of my love, and so I hope the loss I face in my life will be immense. It will be worth facing this loss to feel that I have loved to the greatest of my ability, and have been loved by my beloveds. I believe our shared love will be enough to comfort me in my grief. I hope to be surrounded, and supported, by the love of those still with me in this life, and by the never-ending love of those that have gone on before me. I will seek peace in remembering that my grief is irrefutable evidence of our love.

If I do someday finish some writing to share my thoughts and feelings about love with the world, I know the process will take more time and care than these essays I’ve written over the past two years. To write about what is most important of all will be a wonderful challenge, and I don’t imagine anything I write will ever finally capture what is in my mind and heart. I have been careful not to re-read “The Four Loves”, Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving”, and other works that were important to me as a young man seeking to understand this most important of my emotions. I’ll enjoy reading them again once I’ve explored my own beliefs about love to see what new light they shed for me. I imagine they may inspire another round of editing! If I ever approach Lewis’ wonderful ability to convey great meaning in few words, I’ll be very glad.

My ultimate agreement with the idea that we should not let our happiness depend on something we may lose comes from my belief that the love we share is not something that we may lose. I have faith that love is something that goes on forever beyond the end of space and time, and not something we can lose even in death. That brings me great happiness, indeed, and is one of the firmest foundations of my peace of mind, and the peace in my heart.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0