New wand needed.
This morning we finished the last Harry Potter book. I choked back tears while attempting to read the epilogue. I wept for the end of a brilliant saga, for the flawed lovable characters and their triumphs and losses. My shoulders shuddered over the all-too-relevant metaphors of Voldemort-supremacy, victimized populations, dark magic and for acts of compassion and valor in the face of terrifying realities.
I cried–while the kids watched my contorting face with puzzled curiosity, and listened as my voice became Kermit The Frog-ified– for the hubris and vulnerability of elf, goblin, muggle, and wizard all, for the thousands of pages of my boys’ youth already turned, for the fleeting cozy read-aloud days in our home. I mourned the loss of my magic wand–my one reliable parenting skill and secret power. YOU GUYS. I was really good at those accents.
I need a new wand. This always comes as a surprise–when your reliable tricks cease to work effectively. A new wand requires practice. I might need to learn difficult spells, to encounter charms I don’t understand, to reconsider my own part in curses, and to encounter wizards unfamiliar to me. Perhaps I’ll taste the bitterness of a potion or two along the way, or encounter bully trolls; gate-keepers with Trump-hair.
As Bryan Stevenson writes at the close of a very different book I recently finished– his devastating and critically important Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, “The work continues.”
And so, I intend to believe–in hope, in magic, and in peace– for my home and our world.
