Last month at their home in Texas, Stephen and Katie Stay
and four of their five young children were executed in an h0rrific massacre at
the hands of the ex-husband of Katie’s sister. The sole survivor of the family was
15-year-old Cassidy; incredibly, she not only survived being shot in the head
by playing dead, but managed to call 911 after the incident and give details of
the attack to the authorities. That led to the suspect’s capture later that day
and also saved the lives of her grandparents, whom the murderer intended to
target next. Cassidy is expected to make a full recovery.
During a press conference a few days afterward, the remarkable Cassidy quoted the wizard Dumbledore from the wildly popular fantasy series of Harry Potter books by author J.K. Rowling: “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” That’s an extraordinary attitude to find in a teen who has lost her whole family.
During a press conference a few days afterward, the remarkable Cassidy quoted the wizard Dumbledore from the wildly popular fantasy series of Harry Potter books by author J.K. Rowling: “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” That’s an extraordinary attitude to find in a teen who has lost her whole family.
The Dumbledore reference led to a woman named Michelle Boyer setting up a Facebook
page in Cassidy’s honor, urging Rowling to meet with the teen. Though
they didn’t meet, the author did indeed reach
out to Cassidy. A
representative for Rowling confirmed that she sent Cassidy a letter and
package, but “the contents of the letter and how it came about are between her
and Cassidy and will remain private.” Boyer’s Facebook page confirmed that the
letter included a wand, an acceptance letter to the wizards’ school Hogwarts,
and an autographed copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
A thoughtful gesture, but what really made the letter interesting
is that Rowling apparently wrote it in the voice of Dumbledore. I think this
demonstrates that the author either consciously or instinctively understood an
important insight about fantasy. In a recent Atlantic article, novelist Lev
Grossman, himself the author of a fantasy trilogy, wrote about an
underappreciated aspect of that genre:
I bristle whenever fantasy is
characterized as escapism. It’s not a very accurate way to describe it; in
fact, I think fantasy is a powerful tool for coming to an understanding of
oneself. The magic trick here, the sleight of hand, is that when you pass
through the portal, you re-encounter in the fantasy world the problems you
thought you left behind in the real world.
Grossman goes on to
cite the C.S. Lewis novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as
“a powerful illustration of why fantasy matters in the first place.” In that
beloved children’s classic, the young Lucy and her three siblings are evacuated
to the countryside from London during World War II to escape the bombing. Lucy
discovers in the wardrobe a mystical entrance to a realm called Narnia. Of the
wartime horrors that loom outside in the real world, Grossman says, “You can
feel [Lewis] telling you—I know it’s awful, truly terrible, but that’s not
all there is. There’s another option. Lucy, as she enters the
wardrobe, takes the other option.”
That other option isn’t escapism or denial. “When you go to
Narnia your worries come with you,” Grossman writes. “Narnia just becomes the
place where you work them out and try to resolve them”:
In fantasy… the landscape you
inhabit is a mirror of what’s inside you. The stuff inside can get out, and
walk around, and take the form of places and people and things and magic. And
once it’s outside, then you can get at it. You can wrestle it, make friends
with it, kill it, seduce it. Fantasy takes all those things from deep inside
and puts them where you can see them, and then deal with them.
When Rowling wrote her a letter in Dumbledore’s voice, she
may have been telling Cassidy that I know it’s awful, truly terrible, but
that’s not all there is. There’s another option. She may have been reminding
Cassidy that there is a place in which she can more easily come to grips with her
awful, truly terrible reality. That’s a message Rowling could deliver more effectively
in Dumbledore’s voice than her own.
People find many different ways to cope with terrible loss,
and I can’t even imagine the loss that Cassidy Stay has suffered. But I hope
it’s true what Michelle Boyer states on her Facebook page dedicated to Cassidy:
“In my opinion, a letter from Dumbledore is better than an actual visit from
J.K. This is something that she will be able to find comfort in forever.”
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 8/13/14)
