Grieving, mourning, handling loss… the past week has been a week where I have seen so many people (including myself) handle devastation and heartbreak in a variety of ways. Reading for this week’s post was interesting. I sat down thinking that maybe I would try to read two chapters to help us push through the remaining 4 chapters of the first HP book and start the next one. I didn’t think I could produce two blog posts on the news of the week and law school, but alas, I was wrong. So this is post one for today, and chapter 15 will also be posted. I am not looking to argue either side, I am not going to write about what is right and what is wrong. I am not looking for people to get nasty and try and tell me I am wrong or right. I am simply working out my thoughts about this past week for the first time in writing, and I am asking that people are polite and understanding. If you can’t be those things, then please stop reading.

Recap: We find the golden trio starting to study (or at least Hermione pushing a study agenda on the other two) for upcoming exams. They see Hagrid suspiciously int he library getting books about dragons and decide to find out what is going on. They discover Hagrid has a dragon egg that he got in a nearby town from a stranger. When the egg is hatching Hagrid sends notice to the three and Draco Malfoy catches wind of what is happening. The three go to meet the hatchling and are followed by Draco who finds out about the dragon. Hagrid soon realizes that keeping a dragon, which is growing quickly, in a wooden hut isn’t the best idea. Ron and Harry make arrangements to have Norbert (the dragon) transported to Romania where Charlie, Ron’s brother, can take care of it. Upon taking it to the meeting place for pick up by Charlie’s friends and successfully getting Norbert securely into their custody, Harry and Hermione are caught by Filtch.

This week’s theme: Dealing with Grief.

Unless you’ve lived under a rock this past week you know that in the US the presidential election has caused a lot of turmoil. There are a lot of hurting people. There is a lot of fear and hate being spread around a broken country widening the divide of ideals. When I sat down to read this chapter, hoping to find something meaningful to say, something uplifting, all I could do was fixate on the heartbreak of having to let go of something you so dearly wanted. A lot of people who were rooting for Hillary Clinton to be not only the President of the US but also the first woman President of the US, and as the results rolled in this past Tuesday night,  a lot of people were left hurting.

Hagrid always dreamed of getting a dragon and when he finally got the chance to have one, there were many factors outside of his control that forced him to give up on that dream. It wasn’t an easy choice to make, for a while he tried really hard to keep holding on, to keep Norbert and not have to let him go… and then he was faced with the reality that he had to let him go, he didn’t have another option.

The grieving process isn’t easy. Hillary supporters put their faith in her platform. We worked hard to get people to vote for her. We believed in her message. We truly felt like she was qualified (with some minor hiccups…which are typical of anyone to have) for the job. We didn’t want to believe that Trump’s statements would be condoned by people. We truly believed that Hillary would be the next president and send a message to the people that anyone could be President of the US. We were inspired by her… and then Trump won the election. I went to bed knowing it was going to happen, and woke up terry eyed when it was true.

My grieving process was a call to action. Being sad and angry were not the steps I wanted to handle, so I didn’t. I made the decision to keep moving forward with my dream to make a difference in the world and not let this hold me back. The hardest part of grieving in your own way is realizing that everyone else is grieving in their own way too. For some people it’s attending protests. For some it’s trying to protect their families from maybe being deported. For some it’s arguing with people on Facebook. For some it’s smiling and trying to deny that anything is wrong. For some it’s crying and hugging and seeking support.

Whatever it is, to grieve is to heal. While we don’t know what the future will turn out to be exactly, right now we want to grieve our loss. There is nothing wrong with wanting to grieve, unless your grieving makes you sink low, so low you are down to the level of your opponent. Name calling, race blaming, and other insults are not going to help fix our problems going into the future, if anything it’s going to lead us further into darkness…