I do think "A Grief Observed" is about the best book on the subject, because it is so harsh -- nothing else Lewis wrote is in the same league. You can tell that he thought that all his earlier stuff was theology, not life.

The best poem about this experience, I think, is Wordsworth's sonnet "Surprised by Joy". (Funny Lewis picked it for a title).

The best play about mourning, surprisingly, for me, is Hamlet. I had seen it a hundred times and never connected with the mourning for the dead father, the reappearances, the hauntings, the slightly berserk quality of life, the way he spreads death around him from the earlier death. I am convinced Shakespeare wrote it from personal experience.

yours,

Peter T.