Yet more similarities;

they just keep coming. 

And its not all smiles and magic.

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The script of a play based on a new short story by JK Rowling.

Set 19 years after the HP series ended,

its basically a story of children and grandchildren
(but primarily sons and grandsons) 

struggling to live with the myth and realities of who their parents are

(but primarily their fathers.)

I'm at a disadvantage here since I'm neither a son nor a father.

I am, however, someone who has watched sons struggle
with being the sons of a dead father
while becoming men themselves.

(I can also tell you that daughters have similar issues -
but that's baggage to unpack on a different day. )

I'm here to tell you
the struggle is real.

I know its a universal theme,
a normal part of coming to adulthood,
that we reconcile our childish imaginings of who our parents are
with the flawed, complicated and often contradictory realities
they actually are.

Going through the process,
which no one else can do for you
is painful.

Watching your children go through it,
at any one or all stages of their lives,
without being able to protect them
from the hurt and confusion
is painful too.

That's why the book saddened me
and left me wishing I hadn't read it.

Couldn't we have just used our own imaginations 

and fantasized a lovelier world for Harry Potter and his friends to inhabit?

Why have in writing
that despite all their access to magic and spells
HP&Co became adults with jobs in a huge state bureaucracy and
had surly children who grew up feeling just as unloved and unknown
as Harry did living under a staircase?

Did we really need a reminder of the inevitability
that all variations of life contains pain, loss and sadness
interspersed with fleeting moments of love?

And when Harry says to his son:
"But the thing that scares me most, Albus Severus Potter, is being a dad to you.
Because I'm operating without wires here. 
Most people at least have a dad to base themselves on - and either try to be or try not to be. 
I've got nothing - or very little.
So I'm learning, okay? 
And I'm going to try with everything I've got - to be a good dad for you."

I'm not going to lie, I cried.

 

 The 'trying',
those fleeting moments of reciprocated love and connection
have to be the magic of all our stories, right? -

or else our stories don't make sense.

GI Joe was right.
HP's story gets darker with each book.

Coming soon -
Harry Potter and the Noxious Nursing Home
with the dementia Dementors -
they'd suck the soul out of you if they could remember why they came into the room!

Maybe I'll get started writing that one!

HP people found here
and, yes, I DID order some for Tater