C. S. Lewis Daily

TO FLORENCE (MICHAL) WILLIAMS, the widow of Charles Williams: A letter of condolence.

22 May 1945

Thank you for your most kind letter. We all knew that your marriage was one in a thousand. I think you will not be offended if I tell you this; that whenever Charles disagreed with anything we had said about women in general, it was a common turn of raillery to reply ‘Oh Charles! —of course he’s in love, so his opinions on that subject are worthless!’

I feel, in my degree, as you do. My friendship is not ended. His death has had the very unexpected effect of making death itself look quite different. I believe in the next life ten times more strongly than I did. At moments it seems almost tangible. Mr. Dyson, on the day of the funeral, summed up what many of us felt, ‘It is not blasphemous’, he said ‘To believe that what was true of Our Lord is, in its less degree, true of all who are in Him. They go away in order to be with us in a new way, even closer than before.’ A month ago I would have called this silly sentiment. Now I know better. He seems, in some indefinable way, to be all around us now. I do not doubt he is doing and will do for us all sorts of things he could not have done while in the body. Of course this expects no answer. God bless you.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II
Compiled in Yours, Jack

The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume II: Family Letters 1905-1931. Copyright © 2004 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.