Laughter

Okay, so I’ve talked about grief and death, cheery topics all. Time to talk about laughter. I think everyone’s heard of Norm Cousins’ experience with laughter healing his illness. Now, can you think of anyone that you know, who has a serious illness and has tried it? Nope, me neither. What I know so far, from my experience, is that laughter eases the burden of grief. It doesn’t make the grief disappear. It just makes the physical burden of grief lift for a bit. If you have been dragging that weight around, that is enough.

Yet, when I’ve talked about this on lists for widows/widowers, you would think I had insulted them. One woman told me that it was her grief and she would deal with it in her own way. That’s fine. It truly is a very personal grief and no one should be told how to handle it. My point was that laughter is a tool to help you deal with it. You can chose to use it or not. My situation is that I have to function. I don’t have the luxury of dwelling in that grief. I have to be able to go to work and do all the things that need to be done at home. I just can’t let myself get so weighted down that I can’t do these things. So I will take my laughter any way that I can.

Christmas will still suck. It will be hard to get through our anniversary on the 11th. Some mornings, I get up and I just want to stay home and ride the grief out. Somehow, Loretta or one of the cats will bring me out of it, maybe even just an email. It’s enough. Grief can recede in the background, just like any other mood. It can be managed, just a bit. Some days, that’s enough.

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