Thanks Jo

It's probably over done, isn't it, writing about the end of Harry Potter? So, I won't. Although it soooo tempting.

I do want to say this though, Harry, JKR really, has given me many more gifts than just seven fine stories. I have loved the stories and suffer mostly deeply from Post Potter Depression at the end of each, but what these stories have brought into my life goes beyond that enjoyment, deeper and further.

I've said for years that it if weren't for Harry Potter I would be so old by now. HP has kept me young because so many of the fans are young. I get to listen to them talk about the books and the movies and the video games and through those conversations I also get to hear what they love, are excited about and passionate about. I've connected with my own children, my students, my baby sitters, my kids' friends, and random kids that I meet. I actually have one facebook friend that I met in multiple midnight openings of Harry Potter. Some of the kids barely meet the definition of kid, but if it weren't for Harry, our age difference might leave an insurmountable gap. The Harry Potter books give us a common experience to talk about the common experience of living in a way that so often eludes people of different generations.

It's thanks to a podcast called
Mugglecast
that I've learned about chat, U-stream, Twitter, Digg, Audible, and podcasting all before any of my friends from my own generation. (Well, except for Charlotte of course, which is no surprise since she sent me my first Harry Potter book.) I also learned about far less useful, but still interesting things like Comic-Con, fan fiction and shipping. (Look them up for yourself, urban dictionary
.)I also learned not to underestimate "kids." I have seen Harry Potter fans start and finish projects that many adults wouldn't be able to take on.

JKR gave me other, more important, gifts as well. The one that stands out most clearly in mind is really a gift she gave my children. Many people have complained over the years that the books are too dark for children; there's too much death. Unlike other authors, though, who delve into darkness that very few children actually have to deal with, Jo Rowling writes about a darkness we all have to face, the death of friends and family, our own death. We all face grief in life and how we face it shapes us for better or worse.

When a main character of the books died, my nine year old daughter built a shrine for him in her bedroom. The tears she cried were real. The loss of a fictional friend was no less acute for being fictional; it just didn't last as long. A few years later, however, when a classmate died, she knew about erecting monuments and gathering with friends to remember those who are no longer with us.

Two Christmases ago my son bought a pet snake that had been hatched in his classroom. He loved that snake in a way that makes no sense to me. It can't love you back, you can't cuddle with it, you can't even play with it really. But for whatever reason, JD loved that snake. Just a few days after this last Christmas I heard a horrified scream from my upstairs. I could just tell that it wasn't the usual hollering that comes with having three children. I ran up the stairs to see JD limply dangling the dead snake in his hands. The anguished look on his face dropped my guts to my toes.

It took a long time of just sitting with him as he cried over the snake before he was ready to move on to some kind of closure for this snake's life. You remember that it was just past Christmas when this happened, right? And we live in the great white North, so burying the snake was quite an involved processes. We had to scrape away snow, build a little fire in the ground to thaw it, and then dig a hole. JD wanted to do it all himself. Before all this he first made a little casket lined with the pocket from the sweatshirt where he used to carry the snake. I tried to offer to help and I was brushed away. So I sat there helpless in the snow watching my son try to work through his tears to dig a hole in the frozen ground with one hand, while holding a snake casket in the other. As I watched, I kept thinking of Harry digging a grave for Dobby (don't scold me for spoiling the book for you; you should have read it by now) without the help of magic. Of Ron and Dean putting little socks and a hat on him. Of Luna closing his eyes. JD had learned from Harry that the way you grieve a friend is to pour yourself into a task.

I wish there was a way that I could really thank Jo for what she's given me, but I actually think she knows. She knows because it's not just me. She's received hundreds, thousands, of letters from fans thanking her for the same things I would thank her for.

Waiting...

I'm sitting at my kitchen table waiting for an 11:00 news conference. I'm waiting to hear who died. I'm waiting to hear if it's a child I know, or a child my daughters know. But really, this is not going to be good news no matter what. I'm really waiting to see if the grief is going to come to my house or to someone else's house.

How is it that I will be able to feel relief that my house has been spared, when I already know that someone else's house has not been spared? For certain the families of the children are already living with death. Even if all my daughters' friends have been spared, someone's friend is never coming over to play again. Is my hope that we will not know these children essentially a wish for grief to visit someone else? "Not here, not here, not here!" really means, "Over there, over there, over there..." Somehow that just doesn't seem right.

I can't stop those feelings though. It's impossible. I mean, who welcomes grief?

It might be too soon for me to be posting about this, but my head is all mixed up and I had to work it out somewhere. Waiting...

The Enemy of Great

Do you know that expression, "Good is the enemy of Great?" It sounds good doesn't it? I mean, everyone knows we're a country of slackers who want to get the most while doing the least. Everyone knows that if we just worked a bit harder and stretched ourselves a bit further we could... Oh, I don't know; you finish that sentence.

It's taken me a long time to figure out why I was so fed up with and annoyed by that expression. Now I've come to realize that it's actually the word "Great" that is driving me crazy. We've veered off the path towards a Greatness that really matters and are settling for a Faux Great that is breathtaking, but empty- like a movie set. To achieve a kind "Great" that is rich, full, complex and complete, I think the expression should be "Efficiency is the enemy of Great." Or at least it should be in my two lines of work.

Have you ever tried to rush a two year old or a preschooler out the door in the morning? They don't rush. The more you try to rush them, the less they move. It's shocking how many tiny distractions they can find for every, "Come on! We have to go!" that you through out. As your blood pressure went up and up and their little heels dug further in, did you find yourself being less than "Great" as you screamed, they cried and you all got in the van out of breath?

Have you ever tried to get a middle schooler efficiently through an afternoon of sports, homework and church activities? Did you feel less than "Great" when you realized that in six hours of nagging and coaxing you finally had the kid off to bed and all the work completed, but without ever hearing what was on his heart? Did the glow of accomplishment grow dim as you double checked that the homework was in the backpack only to find a note from a friend/enemy/teacher sharing news of real importance that your child hand never had a chance to share with you?

In my other job, fifth grade teacher, it's even worse. I can go whole days, even weeks, charging through lessons in place value, spelling rules, and causes of the seasons without ever once taking time to listen to the story of the birthday party over the weekend or worse yet, the loss of the pet/grandparent/brother. What kind of loss am I creating with my "Just a minute," and "Not right now?"

To the outside world any of my kids' test scores, report cards and achievements, at home or school, could make it look like I was "Great," but I don't think that's the measuring stick I want to be measured by. I know how naive and sappy that sounds. I also know that it sounds like a cop out, a lazy, slacker path. But sometimes what's true doesn't sound like common sense.

I need to be less efficient in both jobs. Kids need space and time to move, to breathe, to unfold, and they need to do it by their own internal clocks. Kids tell you what's on their hearts when they have the need, not when you have the time. They need you to be present, which means no multi-tasking while you listen, hold, love them.

Raising humans is the opposite of efficient. It's messy. It's circular. It's erratic. It's chaotic. Raising "Great" humans flies in the face of many of business's best practices. That feels scary. Good business practices can be easily measured; you can quickly tell if you're doing the job right. It requires little or no faith; just input the right formulas and the perfect widget will pop out the other side.

Humans, kids, aren't business goals, aren't machines, aren't put on earth for the purpose of producing anything. I personally believe they were put here for the delight and joy of their Creator, but even if you don't believe that, you have to see people as being something greater than product that they can offer to a world with far too many products already.

I say, go ahead, give in to that urge to take the long way, to say "No" to one more thing, to cut the to-do list in half. If you get really good at it, then you could write a best seller called, "Efficiency is the enemy of Great!" but you probably won't have time.