In the fall I realized I was behind the times in that I had not read the Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling. They are extremely well-written, and the plot-lines are brilliant. Being a huge Star Wars geek, I was immediately immersed in the whole fantasy thing. The stories could be considered a little scary for the target audience, but for adults just good fun. I am presently reading the fifth in the series: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Last night when reading I was caught off-guard and driven to tears.
In the fourth book, I believe, is the introduction of a type of ghoul called a Boggart, which is a little bit different than the "real" Boggart of English mythology. In the Harry Potter books, the Boggart is a ghoul which has the ability to manifest itself as the thing that the witness fears the most.
Forgive me if you already know this, and correct me if I'm wrong, but Harry's best friend is Ron Weasley, who has four older brothers and a younger sister. Ron's mother, Molly Weasley, considers Harry another son since Harry is an orphan. In the passage I refer to, Harry is passing the study where Mrs. Weasley was supposed to be "cleaning" which in the wizarding world means clearing the room of messy magical creatures. Harry enters the room only to see Mrs. Weasley sobbing over the dead body of Ron. Harry feels his heart jump out of his body, and as he approaches Mrs. Weasley, the dead body changes from Ron to the dead body of another of Mrs. Weasley's sons, then the dead body of her twin sons, then another brother, then finally to Harry himself. Each time Mrs. Weasley attempts, through her sobs, to cast the spell to destroy the ghoul, she is overcome by grief and is therefore unsuccessful. As Harry stares at his own dead body two other wizards come and extinguish the Boggart, then console Mrs. Weasley.
"I see them d-d-dead all the time!" Mrs. Weasley moaned... "I d-d-dream about it."
You don't have to tell me that my boys are not wizards in the midst of a battle between good and evil where wizards are killed all the time. And although we don't think about it all the time, don't we occasionally visit our own fears in our heads? Mrs. Weasley had only to witness a false image of the dead bodies of her children, her sons, to be taken to that level of horror. Isn't there a level of grief that is only imaginable? We can only hope that grief will always remain a ghoul locked in a writing desk.
