If I can make them laugh they will survive...

Humor, humor has been a root character in my family, ha, ever since I can remember. Oh we cry don’t get me wrong. In a house filled with drug addicts, alcoholic, divorceS, terminal disease, sudden death, oh we have seen the tears, the fears, and the just stupid. For some reason though, I will gift it back to my mother, we find a way to laugh and move forward.

My oldest sister and I are the best at it. Fourteen years and one other sister between us make us a strange partnership to be sure. We can start a real conversation about something serious, her grandson who is still a lying drug addict living in her daughters house, but we can end the conversation in laughter and light hearted. Often this gift helps us draw in the next breath, release some endorphins, and step forward into action.

Neither of our husbands understands or are able to duplicate this but they know every time that we are on the phone together that there will be cackling, and lifted spirits follow when we hang up. This has been my role in my family. If I can just make them smile, soften their heart we will lessen the trauma of the event.

I can so remember the day we were all around our Mother”s hospital bed awaiting the news of a brain biopsy. We teased that maybe they didn’t find her brain and they are trying to find a way to tell us. When they did finally come in and tell us…well it was bad and they gave us her alternatives, not very promising and invasive, we thanked them and they left us to think it out.

All of us sat there looking at Momma and she looked back at us sitting up in the bed with that weird bandage and fearful look in her eyes. I could see both my sisters slipping into “OH MY GOD, What are we going to do” panic.

My heart couldn’t take it, we couldn’t give in to fear and panic we had to have some AIR! So in a manner that perhaps only a baby of three can do I stirred up a line, “Momma, It’s all that damn hairspray you’ve used, we have told you that you were using too much!” The atmosphere cleared almost immediately! We could take steps to plan her care with a bit of joy in our hearts that once again we would pulled together as a broken family and make it thru as best we could.

Mother had one last real “healthy minded “ night just before she slipped in and out of a coma. She was sitting in her living room and again had her girls, all three, in front of her. With courage, strength and clarity she said, Thank you. Thank you girls for taking such good care of me. You have each done a wonderful job. But I must ask you to do one more thing for me. Please, as soon as I am buried all of you need to go to Jenny Craig because you have ALL three gotten fatter than pigs!” And again we were able to laugh, inhale and move forward to do what the next stage would ask of us.

Our middle sister, the drug addict, well she is very very needy. One night after Momma kept slipping in and out of consciousness; she was rubbing Mommas bald head and telling her how much she loved her. Momma woke up enough to mumble, “Merrilyn, stop rubbing my head or I am going to kill you.”

This photo was our Mother’s favorite. It has all but 4 grandchildren in it. It was the family summer vacation a couple of months before she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She would show it to EVERYONE, and say, “Look at this mess started by a single mother! Not too bad is it ?”

My sisters will tell you it was the hardest 10 months ever and they wont ask their children to do that for them. I totally disagree. It was a blessed 10 months to say, do and see things that we would’ve missed if she had just had a heart attack or died another way suddenly.

We came together as broken individuals and made ALMOST a whole person. Like oh so many times before we pulled together to help the one another.

Humor, humor is my drug of choice.

Often it is so hard to find but I know if I can at least laugh then the situation will be survived.