Until death do us part?
October 21, 2026
Last evening, unusually, I had time to myself to do what I hadn’t done in a long time. Watch a movie. Not in a movie theatre; a low-fare airline ticket would be cheaper. But on the smallest screen, a mobile phone, then upgraded to a laptop when the movie got interesting, at zero marginal cost; devices and the internet connectivity are paid for.
On my YouTube feed, ‘Shadowlands’ popped up, a Richard Attenborough’s movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. A true story about one of the most famous Christian writers of our time, C.S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Screwtape Letters, and, of course, Mere Christianity, that David Brooks, a New Times Columnist, in a recent podcast on Spirituality with Fr James Martin, claimed he was gifted 300 copies by well-meaning Christians when he converted from Judaism to Christianity.
Joy Gresham, played by Debra Winger, an American Jewish divorcee and poet, with an 8-year-old son, Douglas Gresham, writes to C S Lewis, alias Jack, played by Anthony Hopkins, and asks if she could visit him in Britain as a fellow writer. Jack invites her over and meets her in a downtown club.
C.S. Lewis, a “stooped, balding, professorial gentleman, in shabby clothes, and nicotine-stained fingers”, a confirmed bachelor and an Oxford don, stays with his brother, Mony, in Shadowlands. He is smitten by Joy Gresham’s verve, astuteness, and boldness, in contrast to his own diffidence. Invited to a gala evening at Oxford, a colleague of C S Lewis, haughtily proclaims men are superior to women upon meeting Joy Gresham.
Joy responds, prefacing her remark with cultural differences between Americans and the British, and asks how she should perceive the remarks: “As an insult to her womanhood or plain stupidity on his part?” Lewis gently steers Joy away from the mummified don to meet other guests, barely maintaining his own professorial veneer, as the inquisitor squirms at the comeback.
Lewis marries Joy Gresham in 1956. She is 17 years his junior. Their marriage is a civil one, a technical marriage, to enable Mary Gresham to live in Britain. They live independent lives. Lewis is in Shadowland, the estate, living with his brother, Mony. And Joy lives in town with her son. The community think they are having an affair. Unknown to them, they are married, but live as religious at a platonic level of contact.
Then Joy is struck with fourth-stage cancer and collapses in her home. Lewis takes charge of her well-being. In her suffering, they discover their love for each other. Lewis proposes to her on her hospital bed, and they have a sacramental marriage where the vows are pregnant with meaning, unlike when two healthy youngsters marry. The vow is a happenstance.
They say facts are stranger than fiction. When Lewis proposes to Joy, the vows are literally playing out in their life. “For better, for worse”. “For richer, for poorer”. “In sickness and in health”. “Until death do us part”. It did. Four years later, her son was 14 years old, when Joy Gresham died, leaving Lewis a widower with a stepson, Douglas Gresham, who became the rightful owner, when Lewis died four years later, of his Intellectual Property rights and royalties from his books and speaking engagements.
Douglas Gresham turned out to be a fine boy and an adult, with an eclectic career. A student of agriculture who became a farmer. At 18 met 21-year-old Merrie. It was love at first sight. Chased her all over the continents to marry her eventually. They have four biological children and one adopted child. They lived in Tasmania, Australia, and now in Britain. Douglas held multiple jobs, including broadcaster and fireman. Now an anointed preacher of the Gospel with multiple charities to address the needs of the least of the brethren.
Their marriage was a paragon of virtuous family life. Douglas, a Christian in the mould of C S Lewis, his stepfather. Then he sinned. He had an affair with a young girl he was counselling. It shattered their marriage. A marriage of minds became a marriage of minefields.
A marriage is tested by infraction. “Do you love me?” When asked, the automatic response is, “Of course, I love you.” “For better, for worse?” It is true until it is not. What is love? St Thomas Aquinas said, “To love is to will the good of the other”. In what circumstances would we ordinarily think good of the other? When it is mutual.
What happens when it is not mutual? When Gresham Douglas deviated from his matrimonial commitments to stay faithful to his wife Merrie, it was not mutual. Was it? No, it was rejection by one of the other.
Two people became one flesh when they took the vow. Do we become two flesh again because of the infraction? No. Until the Catholic Church dissolves the marriage on proven grounds of infidelity. Annulled by the one who blessed the marriage. In a registered marriage, there is a contract, not a sacramental blessing, involving Jesus Christ, the spiritual groom, who cements the marriage. The diocesan Bishop is persona Christi who blesses and can annul the marriage.
When C S Lewis asked if Joy Gresham loved him and she said, yes, “Until death do us part.” So did Merrie and Douglas Gresham and stayed true to the vow despite hiccups.
Peter betrayed Jesus. After His resurrection, Jesus asked Peter thrice, “Do you love me?” to observe the three-fold Jewish custom of forgiveness. Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep”. (Jn 21:17)
If we love someone deeply, is the love predicated on good behaviour? Or is it sacramental? Jesus demonstrated unconditional love by giving up his life, so that those who persecuted Him, then, and even today, are saved when we accept Jesus as God and Master. We, the married couples, will know when we have a Douglas/Merri Gresham situation if we respond in love.
- Mathew Anthony
