Harry Potter paraphernalia covers my kitchen table.
The books, of course.
Paper plates.
Themed chocolates.
The brown Sorting Hat. It was a gift from Jeff.
Come to think of it, my books were also gifts from him.
I began reading the books, borrowed from my brother, while Jeff & I were dating.
I started the Harry Potter stories not out of curiosity but boredom. I was visiting my daddy who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and could not be home alone. Mom was away for a weekend with her sisters.
Daddy was asleep in his recliner. I sat curled on the couch. I retrieved the book from my younger brother’s bedroom and started to read.
I couldn’t stop. I read the first two books that weekend.
Now, a jar of Floo Powder decorates our fireplace mantel. A Platform 9 ¾ logo hangs in our foyer. A Lego of my favorite character, Dobby, adorns my desk.
It seems silly, I know.
But these books have carried me through “dark and difficult times.” (That’s another HP reference.) Such as caring for my daddy one weekend because he could no longer care for himself.
I wasn’t sure what to write about today.
As my family wrapped a Harry Potter movie marathon (the reason for my themed kitchen table) I kept coming back to this quote from Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry:
“You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him.” – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
My daddy is alive in me. He is why I write, and he is why that quote matters to me.
I believe it may matter to someone else.
I attended a funeral last week for a friend whose father died. I know several others who are grieving the death of a parent, a spouse, even a child.
Words won’t erase pain, but the right ones can comfort. Even if they come from a children’s book about a boy wizard.
And that, too, is why I write.
“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children…”
(Proverbs 13:22)
