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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does the author say a mother who has lost a child responds to words of comfort about where the child is?

2. How do some of the author's friends try to console him?

3. In what sense does the author feel isolated from his wife?

4. What, if any, were H.'s last words?

5. Of what emotion does grief remind the author?

Short Essay Questions

1. Lewis decided to record his reflections to get all his feelings and thoughts out. What does Lewis reflect might be a downside to his journal?

2. What does Lewis mean by the term "live" as it relates to H.'s memory?

3. Does Lewis have trouble believing that God exists? Explain.

4. What does Lewis describe as so tragic about H.'s "noble hunger"?

5. Lewis turns to C. with questions about God. How does C. respond to Lewis's thoughts?

6. Why does Lewis think that grief is like fear? Describe the ways in which Lewis experiences fear.

7. What does Lewis find so horrifying about the man he encountered who was tending to his mother's grave? What does Lewis's reaction to the man mean for Lewis's feelings about H.?

8. What do consoling people tell Lewis about where H. is after her death? How does Lewis interpret these attempts to console him?

9. Lewis begins to ask a question that becomes central to his reflections. What "disquieting symptom" introduces itself to Lewis in Chapter One?

10. In Chapter One, Lewis reflects upon marriage, religion and God. What is one thing that Lewis admits that marriage has done for him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

After a long period of feeling left outside a locked door, of feeling that God was unresponsive, Lewis begins to sense God's presence on the other side of the door and that the door is unlocked.

1) Discuss the idea behind the biblical promise cited by Lewis, "Knock and the door shall be opened." What does that mean for Lewis and his interaction with God? What does Lewis ask that the phrase might mean?

2) Discuss the other quote to which Lewis refers in Chapter Three, "To him that hath shall be given." What does that phrase mean to Lewis?

3) What, if any, value do either or both of these quotes have for those who grieve?

Essay Topic 2

Before H. died, what were her nearly last words to Lewis? How do those words compare with words of consolation that Lewis hears after H.'s death? Who does Lewis believe and why? If H.'s words were true, what does it mean for her continuing in God's hands? Describe Lewis's feelings about a God in whose hands Lewis sadly finds his departed wife.

Essay Topic 3

For the first two chapters, Lewis is immersed in emotions, in raw agony. In the third chapter, he takes a significant turn. As Lewis points his ability to reason toward his grief, he begins another stage in the process of his grieving.

1) What questions does Lewis ask about H.'s death and what it means for the whole of life? When Lewis writes about the "problem of the universe," what does he mean?

2) Describe the difference between what Lewis believed before H. died and what he questions after she dies. What is the main difference between the two conditions of belief? What is important about the difference for the possibility of a sane and rational life of faith?

3) Regarding faith, what Lewis believed prior to H.'s death has everything to do with his faith in God and in what he had been taught. How does Lewis think about his faith after H. died?

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