Angelina Isolde Musto

A Grief Observed,by Clive Staples Lewis

the world is still turning, the news continues daily, the sun rises in the morning and sets in the beautiful autumn evenings of Virginia where my sister and I played until the sun went down for many years. the streets of Alexandria are the same as they were when we children. all of my mailboxes, phones and my email box is full reminding me that there are local crises, children in need, a world on the brink of peace or maybe not.

i hear you all of you and see all of you through a glass darkly as of July 11th, 2025 when my sister died. i saw her eyes turn into brown clear crystals when i stroked her curly brown hair. i thought she died in front of me: she told me she felt like she was dying. i ask her if she wanted to go to the hospital, she was as full of life as she ever was, “no, fix my phone, i will die at home. i reached over and fixed her phone. after three and one half years of seeing my beautiful sister bedridden, the exhaustion and pain set in because i knew it would be my last time hearing her vibrant voice. she was an artist, like Bob Dylan said, and she don’t look back. i read that at her funeral on July 17th, 2025.

re reading C.S Lewis’s treatise on grief is both cathartic, painful and it validates what my body is telling me: fear, and the chemical cascade of the fight or flight syndrome. at her funeral everything i ever had thought about came true. like C.S. Lewis said in his “observation” of his grief which lasted for three years, God was not visible, but his presence invisible as was my sister’s soul and spirit. She left her DNA shell for me to bury in a pine box covered with flowers as we all cried and shook when she was lowered into the ground.

C.S Lewis, imho, one of the world’s greatest writers and theologians who was shown into a nano iota of the mind of a the creator God and he shared less then a micro iota with those who seek relief in from their grief. None is given. Pain is walked through at the rate we can tolerate. He took three years or more and recommended that the bereaved be put in leper colonies because of their condition in his musings.

i wanted to let any one who does read my substack including all my friends, political junkies like me and Christians like me that i am wholly preoccupied on Holy Ground. I praise Jesus Christ for the strength to sustain me and preserve my memories and life with her and my family who have all moved into a new space that I call heaven. that is all for now. May the Lord be with you.

i make no apologies for not replying or responding to anyone on substack or email. i still have more work to do for Angie and then i will grieve and rest some more. sleep rhythms are completely gone these days. here are some photos from her funeral. “The CORN LADY” “GENIUS WITH A BRUSH” and she met the architect of Art History while in her dreams who explained the nature of the universe in the context of art history. i have his picture with her. good night for now. LOVE MATTERS.