Caleb was quiet for a moment, said his frustrated statement "Oh Rats!!", then screwed up his little face and threw himself into his Papa as he began to sob uncontrollably. "I love Narnia, and now we've finished the very last page and I won't be able to listen to Narnia again tomorrow." No amount of reminding him that someday we could read the series again would comfort him, because he loves and misses Narnia now.
Oh, how this wrenched his Mama and Papa's heart strings. This little son of ours has sat patiently and wide eyed night after night since mid-January....listening to the story of Narnia being spun, from the creation of their world to the end. He has loved pretending with Emet to be various characters in the stories of valiant princes and princesses, kings and queens, of talking animals craftily wielding swords in battle and living very believable lives in most unusual places. The story of the great lion Aslan....an allegory of our Christ. This world came alive in his mind, and now, as he perceives it, it is coming to a close, 767 pages later.
I couldn't help but record this moment here. Years from now, he may have a similar sadness at the end of reading a great story for the first time.....but he won't cry on his Papa's shoulder, sobbing with sadness.
"And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily every after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before." CS Lewis, The Last Battle
No comments:
Post a Comment