“I think I can understand that feeling about a mother’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely in reality the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, miners, cars, government etc. exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? As Dr. Johnson said, ‘To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavor’. (1st to be happy to prepare for being happy in our own real home hereafter: 2nd in the meantime to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So the job of motherhood is the one for which all others exist…”

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C.S. Lewis, writing in a letter to a “Mrs. Johnson” on March 16th, 1955. This correspondence can be found in The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume lll: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963.

As I was busy posting about the anniversary of Jack Kennedy’s assassination, I forgot to note two other events which November 22nd, 1963 also marks — the death of Clive Staples Lewis and the eleventh birthday of my mother, a reader of this blog.