A Touch of Whimsy

Just so everyone reading this doesn't think I go around thinking morbid, depressing thoughts all the time...

Some of you are Harry Potter fans and some of you are not. If you have never read Harry Potter you'll just have to ignore this post or read in ignorance...either that or go out and read the books. Chris and I have read every book and seen all the movies. I read the first book as a teen one summer out loud with my mom and brother (I loved reading Hagrid's part with his accent!) and I read the last book the day after it came out (my husband got to read it first since I was out of town until late that night). One thing I have always contemplated and it came to mind again when I watched the latest movie again the other night, it the nature of the patronus. I've always wondered if I lived in the mythical world of Harry Potter, what animal would my patronus be? It seems like a patronus must represent something about the person to whom it belongs. I used to think maybe mine would be a sheep...loving, dumb, cute, fuzzy etc, but it never seemed quite right. I'm not really sure what mine would have been. 

With everything that's happened though, I think it's quite possible that mine might have changed. If those of you Potter aficionados remember from Book Six and Tonks, Patronuses can change when there is trauma involved (and I think I've had plenty of trauma). The funny thing is that with all the emphasis I have in my life on overcoming tragedy it suddenly struck me that a likely candidate, especially if you look at the title of this blog, (Ashes), would be the Phoenix. But that couldn't be right because that's Dumbledore's patronus and I'm definitely not on par with Dunbledore! Unless you can have different types of people with the same patronus...Hmmm, guess I'll have to keep thinking. I'd love to hear what other people think on this whimsical subject.