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; I could buy a low-fare airline ticket for the price. I watched it on the smallest screen, a mobile phone, then upgraded to a laptop when the movie got really interesting, at no marginal cost; devices and the internet connectivity already paid for.
On my YouTube feed, ‘Shadowlands’ popped up: a 1993 Richard Attenborough 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 Davidson, played by Debra Winger, an American Jew, divorcee, poet, and mother of David Gresham, ten, and Douglas Gresham, eight, writes to Lewis, alias Jack, played by Anthony Hopkins, and asks if she could visit him in Britain as a fellow writer. Jack invites her over.
David Gresham suffered from schizophrenia. He was excluded from the film. His presence was deemed a distraction from the storyline about Jack, Joy, and Douglas, who was bequeathed the rights to Lewis’s works and tasked with keeping them alive, which he does by making Narnia films and giving talks.
Jack, “stooped, bald, professorial gentleman, in shabby clothes, and nicotine-stained fingers” (as Douglas puts it), was a confirmed bachelor and an Oxford don, who stayed with his brother, Warren (Warny), in an estate named ‘Kiln’ (brick kilns used to operate on the property). Jack is smitten by Joy Davidson’s verve, wit, intelligence, and courage, in contrast to his own diffidence. She was American; he was ‘proper’ Irish. But they were of one mind.
At a gala evening at Oxford, a fellow don haughtily told Joy that men are superior to women. Joy responded, if she should perceive the remarks: “As an insult to her womanhood or plain stupidity on his part?” The room fell silent. Lewis steered Joy and himself to safety before the swooning giant fainted on her, and Lewis himself cracked up on the floor.
Lewis marries Joy Davidson in 1956. She is 18 years his junior. They have a private civil marriage, a technical one, so Joy can live in Britain. They live independent lives. Lewis lived at the ‘Kiln’. Joy lived in London with her son. The community believed them to be having an affair, unaware they were married. The reality. They were married, but their relationship was platonic. Of one mind, not of one body.
Barely into their ‘technical’ marriage, Joy collapses at her home. Admitted to hospital, she is diagnosed with 4th-stage terminal cancer. Lewis takes charge of her well-being. Through her diagnosis, they discover their love for each other. Lewis proposes to her on her hospital bed, officiated by a priest who was his student. They have a sacramental marriage where the vows are pregnant with meaning. It wasn’t happenstance.
When Lewis proposed to Joy, the vows literally play out in their life. “For better, for worse”. “For richer, for poorer”. “In sickness and in health”. “Until death do us part”. It did. She died. Four years later. Her son, Douglas, was 14 years old. Lewis became a widower with Douglas and David Gresham as stepchildren. Lewis died four years later. David Gresham too died early.
Douglas Gresham turned out to be a fine boy and an adult, with an eclectic career. At 18 met 21-year-old Merrie. It was love at first sight. They have four biological children and one adopted child. They lived in Tasmania, Australia, and now in Britain. Now, an anointed preacher of the Gospel. They manage multiple charities to address the needs of the least of the brethren.
Their marriage was a paragon of virtuous family life. Douglas was a Christian in the mould of Lewis, his stepfather. Then he sinned. He had an affair with a young girl he was counselling. It shook their marriage. A marriage is tested by infraction.
“Do you love me?” When asked, the automatic response is, “Of course, I do.” “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”. When it is mutual was not the essence of what Aquinas meant.
What happens when it is not mutual? When Gresham Douglas deviated from his matrimonial commitments by being unfaithful to his wife, Merrie, it was not mutual. It was rejection. By one of the other. Two people become one flesh when they take the vow. Do we become two flesh again because of the infraction? Not 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 the third person, Jesus Christ, the spiritual groom, who cements the marriage. The diocesan Bishop is persona Christi who, through his priests, blesses and can annul the marriage.
When Lewis asked if Joy Davidson loved him, 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 Lord and Master. When we have a Douglas/Merri Gresham situation, only then will we know if we will respond in love. Not now.
- Mathew Anthony
