Lament for a Son is a raw expression of the grief and anguish of losing a child. Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote these reflections in the aftermath of his son’s death in a climbing accident, wrestling with the ongoing pain and loss in the context of his Christian faith.

Wolterstorff’s experience and gifting as a philosopher and author is well in evidence in the clarity and poignancy of his reflections. Having not experienced what he has, I can only imagine to what extent his experience would be echoed by others who have lost a child, but my guess would be that they would recognise much of that to which he gives voice.

It’s the neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us – never to sit with us at table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, never to embrace us as he leaves for school, never to see his brothers and sister marry. All the rest of our lives we must live without him. Only our death can stop the pain of his death.

When we gather now there’s always some one missing, his absence as present as our presence, his silence as loud as our speech. Still five children, but one always gone.
When we’re all together, we’re not all together.

Certain theological commitments make themselves evident at points; Wolterstorff is (and as far as I know from his academic work, remains) committed to a libertarian view of human freedom and a corresponding restriction of divine sovereignty, and rejects the classical divine attribute of impassibility. There are therefore one or two pages I couldn’t agree with, while sympathising deeply with his right to probe the questions asked and to demand no simplistic or easy answers.

ELEMENTS OF THE gospel which I had always thought would console did not. They did something else, something important, but not that. It did not console me to be reminded of the hope of resurrection. If I had forgotten that hope, then it would indeed have brought light into my life to be reminded of it. But I did not think of death as a bottomless pit. I did not grieve as one who has no hope. Yet Eric is gone, here and now he is gone; now I cannot talk with him, now I cannot see him, now I cannot hug him, now I cannot hear of his plans for the future. That is my sorrow. A friend said, “Remember, he’s in good hands.” I was deeply moved. But that reality does not put Eric back in my hands now. That’s my grief. For that grief, what consolation can there be other than having him back?

It is a book of almost unbearably sad beauty.