Who has read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?  I am reading it for the third time.  In it Mrs. Weasley is trying to get #12 Grimmauld Place cleaned up.  She finds a boggart in the cupboard. A boggart is a creature that dwells in closets and cupboards that takes the shape of a person’s worst fear.  Mrs. Weasley cannot do the simple spell of “Ridduculus” to banish the boggart because she is so overwhelmed by seeing visions of each of her beloved family members dead.  

 

I saw a boggart the other morning and was similarly helpless while visions of my husband dead and dying paralyzed me.  Coming out of a meeting at work, my cell phone rang.  I picked it up and it was my stepson. He sounded perfectly matter of fact but his words took my legs out from under me.  

 

“Dad is at the hospital. He had an episode while we went fishing, he lost consciousness. We got him to the boat ramp, an ambulance met us there. His brother is with him and I am putting the boat up. I will call you back when I know more.”

 

With the relaying of those brief facts, the boggart jumped from the cupboard and did a jig around me. I was incoherent, crying, immobilized, seeing only CC dying, leaving me, never to be there for me again. I wasn’t worried that the lawn might never get mowed again or the bills paid, only that he would never ever hold my hands, look into my eyes or make me laugh ever again.  I couldn’t leave my office, talk to my daughter-in-law, make plans or find optimism.  The office rallied around me, Wanda trying to find someone to fly me to Charleston, Trellis talking to my daughter in law when I was unable to, the poor man who had come in to talk business trying to avoid my break down by hanging out around the corner.

 

I felt like I was trying to walk underwater as I prepared to get to his side.  My son drove me and by the time we left town we knew he was going to be alright, that his White Wolf Parkinson Syndrome had given him a gigantic seizure and that there is a medical procedure he can have done so this never happens again.  He was released from the hospital and instructed to find a cardiologist.

 

Two mornings now I have woken up with him at my side, still with me.  Life is good. I know if my husband could choose a place and a way to die, that a quick death fishing near the lighthouse on Morris Island would be high on his list on ways to go. I told him I knew it was a good way to go, but please pick a place nearer home so I could be the first wife on the scene. His first wife (and mother to his son) made it to the hospital before I even left town. His second wife could have been there immediately had she been informed and if she wanted to be - but me, his last wife would have been last on the scene as usual.  

 

We joke and laugh, happy to have missed death’s bullet. In real life I don’t mind that Carl has a past, so do I - it makes us interesting. If his other wives happen to make it to the hospital before me, I don’t care. One thing I learned is that no matter where he is, I can calm down and find him on a soul level and be present with him.  

 

It was just a boggart and I am embarrassed to have lost it so completely. My worst fear is losing any one of my close family members - just like Mrs. Weasley.  Fearing my own death pales next to fearing the death of my husband, my sons, my daughter-in-laws or grandchildren.  Boggarts are banished through laughter and conjuring up of an images of fun and happiness. Let me get busy with those visualizations and keep the boggarts at bay!

 

Oh yeah, a big thanks to all of you who supported me when my legs figuratively went out from under me. What a blessing to have good friends and family.