One should never miss an opportunity to quote Dolly Parton, don't you agree? Dolly had one of my favorite lines in Steel Magnolias. (I know it was written for her character, but I still give Dolly credit.) What she said was, "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion."
Recently, I was on the phone with a very special friend who had just come from making funeral arrangements for her father. It was a heartbreaking conversation, but because both of us have always used humor to cope, we somehow found a way to laugh during that phone call. And it made me remember other times when what might've looked like inappropriate laughter from the outside was actually just coping—people who loved each other trying to get through an impossibly sad situation. I remembered watching a football game—Auburn-LSU I think—with my precious sister-friend Missey when she was in the hospital. She LOVED Auburn football, and I knew how much she'd rather have been at the stadium than in a hospital bed. I don't know why I did it, but I said, "I can't get comfortable in this stiff old recliner—move over!" I climbed up in the hospital bed with her and proceeded to complain about how she was hogging the pillows and the cover, which made her laugh. You can imagine the nurse's face when she walked in and saw us giggling like teenagers at a slumber party. She just laughed with us and went about her business.
There was another time when I was traveling with a group of family out of town for a funeral. It was one of those hard times made harder because not only are you mourning a loss, but you're doing it in a Days Inn someplace unfamiliar, removed from home and the comfort of covered dishes your church family would be bringing if you were closer. The night before the funeral, we all ended up in one room, sitting around, drinking Cokes and motel coffee and talking about ordinary things to try and take our minds off what was coming. I happened to remember a letter in my purse, sent to me by an old college friend. It was her aunt's annual Christmas letter, which was always a catalog of everything bad that had happened throughout the year—surgical procedures, dental appointments, dog has fleas, rose bush has thrips—you name it.There was never one cheerful bit of news. Auntie's Christmas letter was so mournful that it was, well . . . hilarious. (Remember that old Hee-Haw song, "gloom, despair, and agony on me"?) I did a reading for the family (which probably makes me an absolutely horrible person). And we laughed. We knew it wouldn't last, but for just a few minutes, we could push from our minds the reason for our journey.
What we really lose when someone dies is not their love—we carry that with us, always. And it's certainly not our memories of them. Those are here forever. What we lose is fellowship. We lose the ability to pick up the phone and call them or run by and see them, to laugh and cry with them—for now. We can sense that reunion is coming. But it's only human to be impatient for it.
Let not your heart be troubled;
you believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father’s house are many mansions;
if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again and receive you to myself;
that where I am, there you may be also.
And where I go you know,
and the way you know.
John 14:1-4
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