A Severe Mercy: Love After Loss

The grey goose serves as a symbolic representation of both unrestrained freedom and eternal love. It is known to form lifelong bonds with its mate and, even in the face of tragedy, continue flying on alone.

Sheldon and Jean Davy Vanauken adopted the grey goose as a symbol of their own relationship, displaying unwavering devotion throughout wartime, international travels, and countless adventures. Their commitment to each other was unbreakable, taking inspiration from Vanauken’s novel A Severe Mercy (1977), which recounts their meeting in the 1930s when Davy worked as a photo colorist and Vanauken was a college student at Wabash College. Despite their distinct backgrounds, they fell in love and tied the knot after just 10 months.

Vanauken’s book primarily focuses on the profound grief he experienced following Davy’s sudden death in 1955 due to an undiagnosed illness. Similar to the grey goose, Vanauken never remarried but instead, utilized the years after her passing to delve deeper into understanding her through his spiritual journey.

The book not only explores their relationship but also delves into their conversion to Christianity, greatly influenced by their friendship and correspondence with the renowned author, C.S. Lewis.

Vanauken describes his work as not just a love story or a conversion story, but rather the spiritual autobiography of a profound love rather than merely the lovers themselves. This highlights the unique aspect of their relationship, where their love extended beyond each other and encompassed an adoration for love itself. They recognized love as an intentional choice and valued it above all other earthly joys. Whenever their bond was at risk of weakening or distance crept in, their love for love itself propelled them to reignite the union.

In the early years of their marriage, Vanauken and Davy were self-proclaimed seekers of beauty and love, describing themselves as pagans. It was during their time at Oxford that they decided to closely examine the religions they had once scorned. In an atmosphere of intellectual stimulation, they encountered friends from various religious backgrounds who engaged in equal, open discussions of their beliefs, including Catholics, evangelicals, and atheists.

Subsequently, Sheldon and Davy were inspired to delve further into Christianity. Seeking guidance, Vanauken wrote a letter to C.S. Lewis, which unexpectedly led to a deep and enduring friendship that later became a source of solace during his grief.

This profound understanding of Davy continued even after her passing, as Vanauken resolved to confront his sorrow rather than evade it. He chose to channel his suffering towards comprehending the purpose behind Davy’s life and death, using his grief as a catalyst for spiritual evolution. This led to his concept of the “Illumination of the Past,” a thorough exploration of their years together and the meaning of their lives in relation to God.

During this process, Vanauken delved into the halls of memory to encounter each version of Davy throughout her lifetime. It was only after her temporal life had ended that he could perceive the entirety of her existence, with all its facets, simultaneously. He believed that such a complete vision of a person was only possible after death, allowing him to witness the wholeness of Davy.

However, in our modern era, our ability to truly see and appreciate is diminishing due to the overwhelming amount of stimuli demanding our attention. The constant barrage from the entertainment industry, social media, and the internet has dulled our senses, preventing us from devoting patient and profound attention to any one thing. To reclaim our capacity to see, we must not only abstain from this visual noise but also engage in artistic creation as a more potent remedy.

In their pursuit of beauty, the Vanaukens consistently embraced this remedy through poetry, painting, music, and their attentive observation of the people and surroundings around them. Davy’s final words to Sheldon resonate as a parting piece of advice for everyone: “Oh dearling, look.”

For Sheldon and Davy, being fully awake to the world meant finding profound meaning and significance in every expression of beauty, human interaction, and emotion. They understood the importance of keen observation and cherished the depth present in every aspect of existence. Similar to how C.S. Lewis was celebrated as a “mind awake,” the Vanaukens too embodied this state of alertness.

As Davy progressed on her spiritual journey, Vanauken found himself grappling with jealousy towards God. However, the timing of her death, his submission to God’s will, and the intimacy they shared during her final days prevented him from becoming consumed by envy. Instead, Vanauken realized the truth in C.S. Lewis’s statement: Davy’s death constituted a severe mercy.

Vanauken acknowledged that some may find the idea of Davy’s death being a severe mercy unpalatable, given society’s glorification of romantic and sexual love as the ultimate goods while regarding death as the ultimate evil. Yet, it was Davy’s death that ensured Vanauken’s enduring closeness to God and brought him closer than ever before to both God and his beloved, eliminating any sense of separation.