life, at times, is hard. we all have difficulties and challenges and hardships. it’s easy for people to empathis or feel sorry for me because one of my challenges in life is very visual: i’m paralyzed and live life confined to a wheelchair. what about everyone else who suffers silently with their trials? what can help us through our troubled times? humor. “there's no life without humor. it can make the wonderful moments of life truly glorious, and it can make tragic moments bearable.” isn’t that the truth? not degrading, destructive humor, but humor that builds people up. i love when i find a person who is humorous...who can truly make me laugh. humor relieves stress, fear and anger. laughter can heal. when we laugh our blood pressure decreases, heart rate and respiration increase, the body releases endorphins, and depression declines. i also read that children, on average, laugh 400 times a day and adults laugh 15 times a day. wow. what happens when we grow up? why do we take things so seriously? we have a great excuse to laugh more--it’s good for our health! these are a few things i’ve learned this week while preparing to give a speech this weekend entitled “humor in the journey.” hooray for humor!
my grandfather was an alcoholic. when you see a homeless man on the street, looking as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks, toothless and dirty, you may have been looking at my grandpa. the only time we ever heard from my grandpa was when he wanted something. i saw him maybe 4 times in my life. he chose to stay out of our lives. when he died, he was by himself--no family or friends where there to comfort him. he was alone. when my dad went to collect his belongings, he came back with a pocket knife, stamps, and a pair of wading boots. when my dad went to close his father’s checking account, he received a check for $0.75--yes, seventy-five cents. my dad has it framed on the wall in his office as a reminder of the life he doesn’t want for him or his family.
my grandpa and grandma were divorced when my dad was 12, but grandma attended his funeral. there weren’t a lot of people at the short ceremony which was held at the funeral home. his casket was very modest. he was propped up a bit, so when it was time to close the casket, they needed to lower his body. the funeral director had this crank (i’ve never seen anything like this before or since!) and when he turned it, my grandpa was lowered into the casket. i started to cry as i thought of the sad life he lead and all the wonderful things he chose to miss out on. as the mortician was lowering grandpa, the casket began to sway back and forth. out of the blue, my grandma says under her breath, “rock-a-bye!” i looked up at her and started to laugh quietly! a huge smile lit up my face! my grandma had helped make a sad situation into one of my favorite memories of both of them. her humor helped me to stop looking at the sadness and to look at the good that i learned from my grandpa, even if that list was very short.
remember to enjoy life, to find humor in the good and the bad we get to go through. “...life is to be enjoyed, not just endured!”
