Fishtank, sincere sympathy to you in your loss.
Tax-chick, I believe this is the C.S. Lewis section that you're referencing:
Lewis spoke of the need to be stripped of our filthy rags, scrubbed and made gloriously clean before we stand in the presence of God. As Lewis pointed out, we want to be cleaned up:
"Our souls demand purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy’?
Should we not reply, ‘With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleansed first.’
‘It may hurt, you know.’
‘Even so, sir.’"
I think that's the passage AAM had in mind. I was thinking of the closing scenes of "The Last Battle."