Does Loss Make You Who You Are?

I am a C.S. Lewis addict.  When I was little, my mom would gather all four of us kids together every night and read a chapter in the Old Testament, a chapter in the New Testament, and a chapter from a Christian kids book, quite often from C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia.

I loved those books, and I believe they play a part in who I am today.  I love reading, learning about far away places, and I even wrote (but never tried to publish) a Narnia-style kids book.  In writing my own book, I wanted to get to know the person who inspired the book a bit more, and so I read a C.S. Lewis biography called "The Narnian". Little Clive (C.S. stands for 'Clive Staples') was a sickly child, many of his earliest memories were of his mother coming in and taking care of him.  However, one time he and his mother became sick at the same time, and even though he called for her, she was too sick to come.  He remembered vividly her passing away.  In The Magician's Nephew, which is a fable based on the Creation story.  [Spoiler alert] In it, a young boy named Digory finds a set of magic rings, and, along with his friend Polly, find themselves in the world of Narnia as it's being born.  Digory goes into a Garden of Eden-type place, and because of his obedience in the face of temptation, he is able to take an apple back to his dying mother in his own world and save her life.  What C.S. Lewis couldn't do in real life, he was able to do through his writing, hopefully giving himself some closure.  It was the very last Narnia book he wrote.

The idea for The Chronicles of Narnia originally came during the Nazi air raids, when children were taken to the countryside for safekeeping (it is believed that the reason Hitler never allowed Oxford to be bombed is that he planned to make it the capital after he conquered England), while their fathers fought in the war and their mothers worked in the war effort.   C.S. Lewis, an Oxford professor, took in three children during the raid (In The Lion, Witch, and The Wardrobe, an old professor takes the four children into his household during the air raids).  From that sprung the series that's entertained, enchanted, and educated children the world over for 60 years.  But you can't forget it was originally written for children who had lost their childhood through six years of war and its aftermath, many of whom lost parents and loved ones, by someone who had lost his own childhood.

Without that loss, would C.S. Lewis have been who he was, and written what he did?  Would my life be different without having what C.S. Lewis wrote be such a part of my childhood? (OK, adulthood, too.  I still reread them).

I write this morning as I remember my own loss, that of my son-to-be Jonathan exactly one year ago today.  I feel loss that for the second August in a row, my dad won't be coming down to visit for my birthday.   Will I become less of a man, or more of a man, because of these things?  Will those losses enable me to do that will inspire my children or friends, or even strangers, tomorrow, or 60 years from now?

I certainly hope so.  There's always this temptation to allow loss and tragedy to give you an excuse to go into your shell.  There is a place for mourning- massive mourning right after, and smaller but still intense mourning on occasion, like today.  There's probably a loss of your own that popped into your head while you were reading this. But overall I think that loss can make you better.  C.S. Lewis decided to turn his loss into my gain, and I'm very thankful he did.