Life and Laughter

Life and Laughter

Several years ago, in another lifetime, my mother in law got sick with cancer. She died three years later on January 3 2000, having hung in there to see the new millennium in.  It was the first time I had experienced death up close.  She was like the mother I never had and I mourned her deeply.   My husband and I drove down to Pennsylvania and we spent a week there with his extended family.  Instead of sitting around crying and wailing about our loss and the unfairness of life, we talked about Pat and all the funny things she did while blissed out on morphine.  Sound horrible?  It wasn’t.  Our dark humour and fond remembrances were healing in ways that the tears and snot would not have been.  We went to karaoke night at the local bar and seven of us got up on stage and shouted a drunken rendition of We Are Family by the Pointer Sisters.  It was exactly the way I want to be celebrated when my time comes.   With funny stories, remembrances of good times and joyful singing. 

Throughout all of the things I have been through in my life the one thing that has stayed constant and never let me down is my sense of humour.  I consider it my greatest asset and I love to make people laugh.  I use it as an ice breaker and as a defence mechanism.  I keep my distance with my humour but I also put people at ease with it.  It can be sardonic and it can be really dark.  People who are in my life all have the same sense of humour.  I don’t understand people who can’t see the humour in this crazy life.  I don’t judge, I just don’t understand it and I can’t relate to them. 

Laughter is what helps me roll with the punches of life.  It keeps me from taking things…especially my life…too seriously.   Sometimes though I do have trouble being serious when I should be.  In a serious situation, I am often overcome with the irresistible urge to crack a joke because it diffuses the tension I am feeling.  It’s not often met with appreciation.  I am working on that.

I have been connecting with people on video chat and I love to be the “clown” and get people laughing.  It lightens the load we are carrying in all of this.  I don’t plan to be that way it just comes out of me.  Like I said, it’s my ice breaker…I am basically a very shy person but I use my humour to hide that.  I love a good laugh, I am an avid standup comedy fan and I love to share jokes with others.

But today the humour has left me.   My friend Barb was tested positive for COVID-19 and is not well.   I mentioned her in my last post.  She is 88 and in a nursing home.  She told me that last night she laid awake for hours trying to figure out ways to kill herself without leaving her room.  While my heart broke into a million pieces for her, we did have a good laugh about it.  My daughter is afraid of losing her business.  Her husband is a wedding photographer and all of their weddings have been cancelled this summer.   She is stressed and I can only listen and comfort.  

And I think all of this isolation is finally cracking me who loves to be home more than anything else.   Belinda noted today that I haven’t been myself for a few days.  And I feel bad about that, but I can’t seem to find the funny.  Looking at the 7 boxes of cookies on the counter and tray of Jello shots in the fridge still does bring a smile to my face though.

I need to find a way to see the humour in all of this.  It’s essential to my life.  It is what living is about for me, laughing with friends, with Belinda, or just at myself.   I think more people should try to find the humour as well.  Like the people posting funny memes or wearing a costume to take the garbage out, or creating hilarious videos parodying a pop song. 

Every single day of our lives we make a decision to either be miserable or be happy.   Someone made a comment at a meeting I was at that misery is optional, referring to our ability to get up and go to the bathroom or get a drink at any time during the meeting.   Yes, this whole situation is a nightmare.  But other than the measures we are already taking, there is nothing we can do to change it right now.  But we can do something about the way we react and the way we handle it all.  We can choose to see the humour, no matter how dark it is, and make the best of it.  It doesn’t mean we don’t see the seriousness of it all, it means we are stronger than it and are not going to let this pandemic wear us down.  

So wake up in the morning and do something crazy, you aren’t going anywhere, no one is going to see you, so put on wild eye makeup in three different colours, or guys shave only half of your face.  Eat doughnuts and chocolate milk for breakfast, make up a parody song about the virus.  Check out the funny memes on Facebook and forward them to your friends and family.   Paint absurd pictures, write crazy poems.  Anything that gets your funny going.  Laugh.  Laugh long and loud.  Laugh till you cry.  You will feel a lot better for it.

Have you heard any good jokes lately?