Humor as a Life Vest

After Jim’s death bleak despondency draped the walls with intensity almost tactile in its substance…a thick woolen tapestry that threatened to smother the life within.

There came a day some weeks down the path when our son looked at me and said that if there were not some laughter in the house soon we were going to suffocate in our grief.

Truthfully, my first thought was “Yeah? So what?”

Still…that little spark that remained buried deep within my broken soul knew he was right.

As he offered to run up to the video store for movies to make us laugh, I reminded him we needed chocolate and wine to go with. If we were going to have a night…it was going to be the whole nine yards and the thread to mend it.

To this day, I do not recall the movies he brought home…yet, I do recall laughing until tears streamed down our cheeks that had nothing to do with death. It was the first glimmer of realization that humor would save me.

I still stumbled, fell and wallowed in missing Jim with a ferocity that often frightened me. As the sorrow threatened to drown us again it was our son off to the video store for absurd movies, chocolate, wine and raucous laughter would, for a space, rock the walls of this little cracker box called home.

Even so, there came a point where I needed assistance in coping beyond the “movie nights” and two things happened that propelled me into the world of healing.

The first came in the persona of a gifted counselor who had not experienced the death of a spouse yet had the empathy, grace and expertise to give me knowledge to understand my grief at my own pace.

The second was (and remains) an online support group peopled by widowed folk all over this little blue rock that became my lifeline back into the real world.

At some point to inhabiting this cyber-world a small group of us became bonded in a real sense and created another niche within dedicated to laughter and just plain whackiness (spellun’ mine). We shared ridiculous jokes, the joys, sorrows and absurdities that had happened in our lives and became like an often dysfunctional yet loving sit-com family.

It was my salvation.

Among our little psychotic fambly dwelt a dour, misanthropic, pet hating (not), curmudgeon of a lad from Sterling whom we dubbed “The Mad Scot”. His sense of humor skewed in the extreme, he either had us rolling in tears of laughter or eating the carpet to keep from strangling him as he tossed social hand grenades willy-nilly across the floor just to see who would pick them up and pull the pin. I doubt we ever failed him. (that this delightfully wicked man has become a true friend and married a very special one of our own is a precious gift in this life.)

And what all of this has to do with humor being a life vest is showcased in the hilarious Scottish poem he shared below:

(note: Please hear “Shrek” as you read this)

The Effen Bee

He kept bees in the great town of Effen

A wise Effen bee keeper was he

When one day this Effen bee keeper

Got stung by a big Effen bee!!!!!

Now the Effen bee keepers “wee” Effen wife

For the big Effen “ polis “ she ran

For there’s naebody can sort out a big

Effen beeLike a big Effen polis man can

Now the big Effen polis was fit as a fiddle

And he ran doon the main Effen street

In his hand was a big Effen baton

He had big Effen boots on his feet

Now the big Effen polis caught the big Effen bee

And he twisted the Effen bee’s wings

But the big Effen bee goat it’s ain back

‘Cos this big Effen bee hud twae stings

Now they’re both in the Effen museum

Where the Effen folk oft come tae see

The remains of the big Effen polis

Stung tae death by a big Effen bee.

Humor and friendship has saved us all, given us breath and strength to survive the unsurvivable and guided our steps on this unwelcome path.

Both are still what I cling to when the melancholies threaten to drown me.