Laughing When Things Aren't Funny
Screenshot courtesy of @verygoodchat
Last October, Pete Davidson delivered an uncharacteristically poignant monologue on Saturday Night Live. He spoke of the trauma of losing his father, a firefighter who died while responding to attacks on the twin towers on 9/11, and how it cast him into a deep depression throughout much of his childhood. It wasn’t until he listened to Eddie Murphy doing standup that he was able to laugh again. Acknowledging the ongoing trauma and pain brought on by current events, he closed the monologue with the insight that “sometimes comedy is the only way forward from a tragedy.”
Terrible things are happening in the world right now.
The Covid-19 pandemic continues to be a threat to health and life for the entire planet, while worsening H5N1 outbreaks threaten to usher in a far more devastating pandemic. We’ve passed point-of-no-return milestones in climate change without any signs of slowing down. Corrupt leaders and ineffective governments are enabling genocide around the planet. In the United States, our democracy is on the line. One of the last tools we have to protect ourselves – masks and respirators – are being banned around the country as we speak.
What a fucking mess.
There’s nothing funny about any of it, but there is still a place and a purpose for laughter in our lives. To be clear, I’m not saying it’s cool to laugh at or about tragedies. I’m saying that laughter can help us get through them.
And beyond them.
Living through trauma after trauma leads us to face our own mortality. Our drive for self-preservation kicks in, reminding us we can’t lone-wolf it through life and expect to last very long. We need the protection of our pack, so we seek them out and do our best to conform. Not just conform, but belong. Laughter seems to have a magical way of forging kinship between people. It’s that kinship that protects and sustains us through difficult times. It’s essential to our survival.
I have one distinct memory of laughing so hard I nearly passed out. I had tears streaming down my face. My belly was aching. I could barely breathe. I even peed my pants a little.
Let me back up to a few days before that, when I answered a call from my brother that would change my life.
“Dad is dead,” he said. “I hadn’t heard from him for a few days so I stopped by the house. I called 911. The police are here. They’re calling someone to take his body away.” My normally stoic brother began to cry.
I stumbled to the sofa to sit. “Oh my God,” I said. All at once, like a punch in the gut, it hit me. I began to scream and cry, shouting every four-letter word in my vocabulary.
“What are we supposed to do now?” My brother asked.
As the eldest child and my father’s power-of-attorney, that question was mine to answer. I asked my brother if he’d called our half-brother, the son of our father and stepmother. He had. The two of them still lived in our hometown and could lean on each other until I could get there from out of town. I told him I was on the way and we hung up.
After a late-night road trip, I arrived in my hometown, just in time for our appointment at the funeral home. My brothers were there, as was my stepmother, whom I’ll henceforth refer to as W.S. (wicked stepmother). If that sounds mean, I assure you, the title is well deserved.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 10 years old. Shortly after, my brother and I were introduced to the woman who would become W.S. A few months later, we learned that Dad and W.S. were getting married. My brother and I weren’t invited. It had something to do with her being a devout Christian and her church frowning upon divorce, so rather than find another church that would be cool with including us in the wedding, she felt it was best to pretend like we didn’t exist.
That pretty much defined our relationship with her from that point forward. At first, she’d pretend to be nice to us when we’d visit on the weekends. But once my father was out of earshot, she’d make a point of telling us how much they were struggling financially because he had to pay my mom child support. They lived modestly, but truth be told, my mom was the one who was struggling. She worked 2 jobs throughout much of my youth because child support didn’t put much of a dent in our living expenses. W.S. knew that, but still resented every penny my father ponied up for us and barred him from contributing any more than what he was legally obligated to pay. Nor was she willing to work and chip in herself.
One day I asked my dad why W.S. didn’t work. That’s when he broke the news to me that she was pregnant. The news had come as a surprise to all of us, but especially my dad. W.S. had told him while they were dating that it was medically impossible for her to get pregnant, so he thought he was done with having kids.
Surprise, Dad.
With a half-sibling on the way, my dad was panicked about having an additional dependent to support. He got a second job himself and started cutting grass for neighbors just to earn a little extra cash here and there. Meanwhile W.S. was riding his ass to buy a house with more room for their growing family. Every now and then during our weekend visits, they’d take us along with them to tour houses that were on the market. Sucker punched by sticker shock, my dad would melt down on the drive home and start ranting about what a waste it had been for my mom to get the house in the divorce. W.S. would shake her head and pretend to cry, egging him on and making him even angrier. My brother and I would quietly absorb all of this from the backseat, feeling the weight of their resentment.
After suffering through this routine enough times, I finally blew up at my dad and told him he was being an asshole to us. We didn’t ask him to divorce our mom, remarry, and have another kid. My brother and I weren’t to blame for all the things that were making him angry and I was sick of him taking out it out on us. He apologized, but the damage was done. I stopped talking to him and refused to see him and W.S. for the next several months.
When my half-brother was born, I softened up. I wanted to be part of his life, so I chose to accept my dad’s apology and made amends with him. W.S. was a different story. She made little effort to hide her contempt for us. It was a weird dynamic that I tolerated as best I could.
By the time my half-brother started kindergarten, things began to change. W.S. would often be gone when my brother and I would come over for weekend visits. While it was much more pleasant without her around, the mood was heavy in the house. My dad didn’t seem like himself anymore. I finally worked up the nerve to ask him about it one day.
“She runs around on me,” he said. “She led me to believe she was a devout Christian, with morals.”
Surprise again, Dad.
In one of the most awkward conversations of my life, I found myself consoling my weeping father, who was facing the collapse of his second marriage. “Are you going to get a divorce?” I asked.
“No,” he said, a little too quickly. “I already lost one house in a divorce. I’m not going to lose another one.” True to his word, he stayed put. He threw himself into his career while W.S. threw herself into a series of affairs. They weirdly co-existed that way for the next 10 years.
Things took a turn for the worse when my father suffered a workplace injury, causing damage to his neck and spinal cord. A hospitalization and a series of surgeries got him back on his feet but left him disabled. He had to take an early retirement, which ended a career he loved and shrunk his monthly income significantly.
Suddenly he and W.S. had money problems. W.S. then had a bizarre series of trip-and-fall accidents in public places and attempted, without success, to sue the businesses where they occurred. While she couldn’t cash in on the accidents, she did score several prescriptions for opioid painkillers. She didn’t take them, so my father helped himself to them in an effort to control the chronic pain from his injury and surgeries. Within a short period of time, he was an addict. Overwhelmed by the turn of events, my half-brother dropped out of high school and went to work. My brother and I did as much as we could to help him and my dad get through the next few years, with W.S. largely absent from their lives. It was a shitshow of dysfunction, depression, and collective denial that things were such a mess. When my half-brother was old enough, he got his GED and joined the military to get the fuck out of our hometown. I can’t blame him. College, grad school, and my subsequent career had pulled me away from my hometown as well. Going back to visit and do damage control was painful.
With my half-brother gone from the house, W.S. packed up as much shit as she could cram into a U-Haul and moved out. My dad didn’t know what to do with himself. Alone, disabled, and addicted, he overdosed himself and nearly died. My aunt, my brother and I, along with our families, gathered around his bed at the hospital and held an intervention. He swore it had been accidental, but agreed to voluntarily admit himself to a drug and alcohol treatment center. We called W.S. to let her know. She had no interest in being there for him. We asked her to at least go sweep the house and remove all of the painkillers.
A couple of weeks later, my father signed himself out of treatment. He went home to find a counter full of painkillers laid out like the fucking buffet line at Golden Corral. Rather than removing all prescription drugs from the house as requested, W.S. had filled some new prescriptions and left him with even more pills. He overdosed himself again. A neighbor went to check on him, calling 911 when he found him unresponsive. Back in the hospital, those of us who still gave a shit about my dad gathered again, pleading with him to get help. W.S. had been notified but didn’t make an appearance. My half-brother confided in me that she had moved in with another man and was planning to marry him as soon as our father died.
We all told my dad that he needed to move on from his marriage and focus on getting well. After some heated, emotional discussion, he agreed to go back to the treatment center.
Except his insurance wouldn’t pay for a return trip when they’d already fronted the full cost and he’d voluntarily signed himself out. That left us scrambling, trying to figure out how we could keep him alive. His psychotherapist cobbled together a DIY recovery plan for him, which came down to me taking family medical leave from work for the next few weeks and babysitting him around the clock to keep him from using. I had to drive my dad to his psychotherapist’s office for a daily check-in, as well as hold and dispense prescription medications to him around the clock. The psychotherapist also required my dad to attend 3 daily NA or AA meetings. To ensure his participation, I had to shuttle him to the meetings, which were spread out all over the county. We spent most of our days together in my car, riding from one place to the next.
We lived off of fast food. We’d walk around Walmart to kill time in between meetings. We’d park in the mall parking lot and take naps when we were exhausted. We’d become such regulars on the main road passing through downtown that the prostitutes on street corners would recognize my car, waving and smiling with a familiar nod while we waited at stop lights.
Those were three of the hardest fucking weeks of my life.
They were also three of the best fucking weeks of my life. I wouldn’t trade them for the world. It was the most uninterrupted time I had spent with my father since I’d been a young child. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the last time I’d ever get to have that much time with him.
That first week with him was hard. My dad was detached and quiet. I had to force him to eat. I tried to get him to talk to me about what was going on in his mind. I even went into the AA/NA meetings with him and prodded him to talk and interact with his peers in the group. Everything was a struggle.
The following week, there was a turning point. We piled into my car one morning to begin our daily routine that had so quickly become mundane. My dad turned up the radio. It had been on the same station all week, playing the same loop of top 40 songs ad nauseum. Shaggy's 'Mr. Boombastic' was playing. My dad started bobbing his head to the music.
And when the vocals began, my dad – having heard the song play no less than 5 times a day the entire week before – began singing along.
“Mista Lover-Lover… I’m Mista Lover-Lover…
She call me Mista Boombastic
Call me fantastic
Touch me on the back
She says I’m Mista Ro…mantic...”
I started laughing. Unfazed, my dad finished the song, nailing every line of lyrics. I guffawed until tears were spilling from my eyes, applauding when the song was over.
We went to McDonald’s for breakfast after his morning check-in. While I waited in line to order, he sat down on a bench in the dining area, crossed his legs and leaned against the Ronald McDonald statue sitting next to him. Ronald’s arm was draped across his back, with the white glove appearing to rest on my dad’s shoulder. The sight of that alone got me laughing again. Then I realized why he was was leaning ever so slightly, to catch a glimpse of a couple of screaming toddlers chasing each other around the Playplace.
For the first time since he’d been discharged from the hospital, I saw him smile.
We slid into a booth to dine on biscuits and coffee. He started telling me random things he remembered about me as a baby. And then the things he remembered about my brothers when they were babies too. All the ways we were alike, and all the ways we were different. He told me he how proud he was of each of us, and how much he loved us.
He told me he’d tried to be a good dad. He knew he hadn’t always gotten it right, but he’d tried. I knew that. I told him so. I assured him there was plenty he had done right and that we were proud of him and loved him too. And even though we were all grown up, we still needed him. The most important thing he could do was focus on getting well and taking care of himself so he could stay with us for as long as possible. He nodded with understanding.
“Please divorce her, dad,” I begged. "If you want to live, you need to leave her. Give her the goddamn house if that’s what she wants. It’s not worth your life. She doesn’t love you. She wants you dead.”
Tears welled in his eyes. “I know.”
“Do you want me to help you find a lawyer?”
“I’m not ready,” he said. “I will. I just need time.”
The following day we stopped by a Walmart to kill time in between his meetings. We passed by a rack of hot pink women’s sweaters with faux fur collars. They’d been marked down to $2 each. I joked that we could buy them all and give them out to the ladies downtown who kept smiling and waving at us each time we passed by them. He laughed, then picked up one of the sweaters and started walking toward the fitting rooms.
“Dad, what the fuck are you doing?”
He slipped into one of the rooms, closed the door, then stepped out a minute later with the sweater on. I doubled over laughing. A couple of employees heard me losing it and showed up to see what was so funny. At the sight of my dad, they lost it as well. One of them ran toward the children’s section and returned with a tiara, placing it upon his snow-white hair. He acted like he was a contestant in a beauty pageant and started fielding questions from the Walmart employees about how he would go about achieving world peace. Other shoppers started cruising by us to see what all the fuss was about. Everyone who saw him had a good laugh. We were having so much fun we lost track of time and almost missed his meeting.
For the next two weeks, we carried on this way, running to doctor’s appointments and the lab for bloodwork and the pharmacy for his meds and from one recovery meeting to the next. Any time an opportunity presented itself in between, we’d clown around like a couple of 5th graders. Whenever we’d spot a phone booth, we’d stop to see if it was working and would make prank calls to W.S. if so. We’d park the car and throw French fries out the windows to watch seagulls show up and lose their fucking minds, screaming and shitting all over each other just to grab one. We made a game of it – Seagull Bingo. Whomever had the most shit on their side of the windshield after all the fries had been thrown outside was the winner; the loser had to squeegee it all off at a gas station. We’d pull up to the drive through window to pick up fast food orders and I’d tell the cashier that my dad was single and ready to mingle. You wouldn’t believe how many phone numbers I scored for him.
You wouldn’t believe how much we laughed.
Because why not? It was a shit situation. Being able to laugh gave us respite from the life-and-death matters we’d been dealing with. It gave us the resolve to get through the rigorous daily routine his psychotherapist had Frankensteined together for him as a substitute for inpatient residential treatment. It gave us a series of little escapes from the heavy conversations he was having in recovery meetings.
I truly believe that laughter we shared is a big part of why my dad got better and was able to return to living independently. After a few weeks of progress, his psychotherapist gave him the all clear, encouraged him to continue attending meetings, and embrace the people in those spaces as his community, his chosen family. And he did. He made friends. They spent time together outside of meetings, having coffee at McDonald’s in the mornings and going fishing on weekends and I think there was even a karaoke night involved at a Christmas party in a church fellowship hall. I can only hope my dad got up and sang ‘Mr. Boombastic.’
For the next several years, my dad made the most of his life. He remained at home. He was happy. W.S. kept her distance. He’d come to see her for who she was and no longer felt any love for her, but would not initiate a divorce. He knew he’d lose the house and that, for him, was far worse than remaining married to the horrible person he knew she was. Whatever arrangement they had seemed to work for them so I didn’t question it.
Until I learned there was a worrisome change in circumstances for W.S. She’d been living for a while with a boyfriend, announcing without shame that she would marry him as soon as my dad died. In an unexpected turn of events, her new man died first.
Surprise, W.S.
Her deceased boyfriend’s family had law enforcement remove her from the home and put her things out on the curb. She had worn out her welcome most everywhere she’d been. That made me nervous.
Next thing I knew, my dad was using again. To be fair, he was aging and had other health issues that were progressing. The wear and tear on his body was taking a toll and he was indeed in pain. Unfortunately, the only thing that could touch it was the stuff he was addicted to, and once he had access to it, he couldn’t control himself. While my brothers and I pleaded with him to get help and tried restricting his access to painkillers, he was resourceful enough to get them himself. I heard from his neighbors that W.S. was coming back around from time to time. I think it’s highly likely she came bearing gifts. I had a feeling my dad was in trouble and tried to warn him. I asked him to come stay with me for a while, until I could figure out a more sustainable solution.
“I’ll be okay,” he insisted. “All I want is to be at home. I’m happy here.”
Then came the day when my phone rang with that fateful call from my brother. My dad was dead.
The following morning, I walked numbly into the funeral home, hugged my brothers, and sat down in a meeting room with the staff. To my horror, I looked out the window to see W.S. pulling into the handicapped spot. I’m pretty sure all the crucifixes on the walls turned upside down as she strolled into the building. She barged in on our meeting just as we were informed by the staff that of the three life insurance policies my dad had, two were canceled due to non-payment. The only one remaining was in my name, for a few thousand dollars.
“That’s just enough to have a small memorial service, publish an obituary and have the body cremated,” the funeral home director told us.
Wicked Stepmother scoffed loudly. “Just cremate him and have the funeral home dispose of his ashes,” she said, glaring at me with contempt.
“Fuck you, Wicked Stepmother!” I said. Not out loud, mind you, but with the look of utter disgust on my face. “That’s not what he wanted. He wanted to be buried in the cemetery near his parents.”
“Good luck with that,” she scoffed. “You can’t bury him with what he left you. And it would be a waste to publish an obituary and have a funeral. No one would care. No one would come.”
“Dad WILL have a service. And he WILL be buried in the cemetery, even if it’s just his ashes. You’re getting the house and everything in it. How much are you going to chip in?”
“Nothing,” she smirked proudly, as she pulled an envelope out of her purse and laid it on the table. “We had a separation agreement. I’m not responsible for any of his debts or expenses. That’s your responsibility as the eldest child. But I get the house and all of the property.” She was beaming from ear to ear with the same kind of unbridled joy you see in a vulture that lands next to roadkill on the side of the highway, jumping gleefully around the carcass before devouring it.
“Then why are you here?” I asked. “If you no longer consider yourself his family, you’re not going to help with the expenses, and you have no interest in honoring his final wishes, you don’t need to stay.”
“I’m still his widow and I have every right to be here,” she sneered.
I did my best to ignore her as the funeral home folks hashed through all the different tiers of funeral services that none of us could afford, arriving at cremation and internment of his ashes in the cemetery. I scheduled a visitation service for the following night and a memorial service a few days later. I wrote an obituary and sent it to the local paper just in time for it to make it in print the following day, then signed a stack of paperwork so the funeral home could get started on the arrangements.
The following evening I arrived at the visitation service to find that W.S. had shown up early and set up photos of my father, herself, and my half-brother around the room, completely excluding any of me and my brother. She had already moved back into the house, changed the locks, and had started throwing my father’s belongings away – including everything that belonged to me and my brother, as if still pretending we had never existed.
She had her grieving widow mask on, but underneath it, she was on a mission to make the experience as painful as she could for the rest of us. Visitors began to arrive and W.S. received them with fake tears. When my aunts, uncles, and cousins from my mother’s side of the family came to offer their condolences, W.S. tried to stop them at the door, snidely telling them “this is for family only.” I went to tell her that they were *my* family and it was *my* visitation service that I had paid for, so she needed to back the fuck off. She started raising her voice and was ready to cause a scene.
Fortunately, some uniformed Army officers showed up to present the American flag to the family in honor of my dad’s military service. W.S. was all over it. The flag, and the men in uniform. While she was distracted, I glanced outside the entrance to see my brother pacing and furiously chain-smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes. And in the corner of the visitation room, my half-brother was slumped over in an armchair, resting his head in his hands.
I heard my dad’s voice echo through the corners of my mind: Take care of your brothers.
I made my way over to my half-brother and tapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get out of here for a minute.” We stepped outside, beckoning our smoking sibling to join us. We piled onto a picnic table behind the funeral home and sat in silence for a minute.
“Remember when we were kids and Dad used to take us to that Burger King across the street?” My brother asked. “And we would get extra French fries to feed to the seagulls in the parking lot?”
Tears sprang to my eyes, but I was laughing through them. I told my brothers about Seagull Bingo. Next thing I knew we were all laughing and sharing funny stories about my dad. Most of mine came from that stretch of weeks I’d spent with him during his recovery. It felt good to delve into those memories and share them with my brothers. It felt good to take a break from worrying and crying. The more we talked about my dad and laughed together, the closer we felt to him. We joked about his ghost sitting at the table with us, bumming a cigarette off of my brother and laughing about W.S. trying to pick up more men at his funeral. Sad though I was when we parted ways that evening, I felt lighter. More at ease.
I slept peacefully that night.
The following morning, the funeral home director called to let me know that the floral arrangements sent to the visitation service needed to be picked up. I didn’t have anywhere to put them and the funeral home needed for them to be gone before their first service of the day, which was starting shortly. He told me their usual protocol for flowers that get left behind is to deliver them to a nursing home down the street, where the staff would divvy up the blooms and use Dixie cups to make mini bouquets to place in residents’ rooms. He offered to do that with the arrangements sent for my family and I told him yes. My dad would have liked that.
The funeral home also let me know that the ashes were ready. I asked that a small portion be set aside before they were sent to the cemetery for internment, which they were happy to oblige. A short while later, I picked up the small cardboard box that held the remnants of my father. I texted my brothers to let them know that I had some of his ashes in hand, in case we wanted to divvy them up and keep them in urns. Neither were interested; they both seemed downright mortified by the idea. Maybe it came from a place of misguided guilt. My Dad’s final wishes had been to be buried in a casket near his parents. I think we all felt shitty that none of us had the means to make it happen.
Oh hey, since you’re at the funeral home, can I ask you a favor? My half-brother texted. My mom wants that hydrangea plant that someone sent. Can you bring it over to the house? She meant to take it home last night but forgot. She says that’s hers and she wants it.
Sorry, I texted back. They had another service this morning so they sent the flowers to a nursing home—
I stopped, backspacing over what I had typed and crafted a new message. The mental image of W.S. busting into a nursing home and snatching flowers out of the hands of the residents was a bit too real.
Sorry. They’re already gone. BTW, I could come by the house and pick up any of Dad’s things that she wants to throw away, if that might help lighten her load. We should go through them together. There might be some things we want to hold onto.
She says no, he texted back several minutes later. She’s already thrown a lot of that stuff away and is going to get rid of the rest of it. She’s melting down because she didn’t get the flowers. Do you know who took them? I can go pick them up if you know where they are.
I don’t. I’m sorry.
She’s really mad, he texted back. She’s calling everyone who went last night to ask them if they took the hydrangea. She’s going to go by the funeral home later too to talk to the manager. You might want to warn them.
I looked down at the box of my Dad’s ashes in my hands and smiled. I could almost hear him laughing from somewhere in the afterlife. I knew he would have found it fucking hilarious to see W.S. losing her mind over a hydrangea. She got the house and all of my Dad’s property, didn’t pay a dime toward his final expenses, probably even lined up some dates among the men who came to the visitation. It still wasn’t enough to satisfy her. I realized in that moment what my dad had figured out years ago, that she’d never be happy.
My dad was a good man and he’d loved her. He’d supported her financially, bought her a modest home that was just the right size for their family, and was stubbornly faithful to her throughout their marriage. I’ll never know why it wasn’t enough for her, but she’d made the choice a long time ago to spend her life chasing money and flings and material things. She was still chasing, still gleefully running roughshod all over anyone who got in her way. She wasn’t a part of the memories and stories I’d exchanged with my brothers the evening before. Her life was devoid of the warmth and laughter we had shared. For a split second, I almost felt sorry for her.
And for a split second, I was angry at my dad too. For accepting the emotional abuse she had doled out to all of us over the years, and for refusing to divorce her. I had to remind myself he’d made that choice because he didn’t want to lose his home. He was happy there and couldn’t envision uprooting his tired, broken body to live elsewhere. If he’d had any awareness of what was happening to him when he died, I believe he would have been at peace with being at home when it happened. I understood his feelings. I forgave him.
That night I drove to the house that W.S. now owned, dressed in black from head to toe, including gloves and a black cap. I stopped short of adding black greasepaint to my face, but believe me, the Mission Impossible theme song was on repeat in my head. I parked down the street and waited until all the lights were off on the inside. Sneaking into the yard, I opened the box of ashes and scattered them all around the perimeter of the house. I did my best to move quietly and not wake the beast inside, as I had no doubt she’d call the police on me and report me for trespassing. Just as I was finishing up, the neighbor’s dog started barking and the porch lights lit up on the house next door. I ran back to my car and sped away like a bat out of hell.
Once again, I knew it, I felt it – my dad was laughing, wherever he was.
And so was I.
I laughed and laughed and laughed until I was crying. My stomach and chest were aching. I peed my pants a little. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in my life. It was exhilarating and painful and wonderful at the same time.
I stopped at the nearby McDonald’s to grab a coffee. I felt a lump in my throat at the sight of the Ronald McDonald statue on the bench where my father once sat, smiling at the kids in the Playplace just before he poured out his heart to me about all his favorite memories of each of his kids. As I settled into a booth to sip my coffee, I checked my phone to see that my brother had sent a text, asking what I’d done with the ashes.
I took care of them, I texted. He’s at rest now, everywhere he should be.
What does that mean? Where did you put them? He asked.
Let’s just say that Dad got the house back, LOL.
The following day, we gathered again for the memorial service. The church was full, which made me happy after W.S. had snidely insisted no one would show up for him. My dad brought in quite the crowd. I was pleasantly surprised at how many people got up to share a story about him. Equal parts tears and laughter, I believe his celebration of life did him justice. He would have been proud. He would have been happy. He would have been laughing his ass off, like I continued to do each time I looked over at W.S. and thought about the fact that she’d literally had to step over my father’s dead body to get to the memorial service that day.
After the service, W.S. quickly disappeared. I lingered outside of the chapel with my brothers, our spouses, my aunt and cousins, giving out hugs and handshakes and thanking everyone for coming. One of us cracked a joke and the rest laughed.
“We need to get together more often,” said my aunt. “I’ve had the best time catching up with you all. Even with all the crying, I’ve laughed till my belly hurts. Do you think other families go to funerals and laugh this hard, or are we just a bunch of assholes?”
The elderly pastor who had preached my dad’s memorial service was shuffling past us at that moment. He stopped to drop some words of wisdom on us. They were unexpectedly deep. “Life pulls us apart,” he said with a smile. “Death brings us back together.”
We glanced around at each other, realizing that indeed, this was as close as we’d come to a family reunion in over a decade.
“Grieving is hard work, and grief is a heavy burden,” the pastor continued. “We weren’t built to carry the weight of it all by ourselves. Grief can consume us if we don’t let some of it out, and it's easier to do that when you’re surrounded by loved ones. Big feelings come out as tears sometimes; other times they come out as laughter. They’re both part of this journey. They’re both important. They both keep families glued together when it feels like everything else is falling apart."
Suddenly, we were sniffling and reaching for tissues again. Reverend Yoda asked us to say a prayer with him. After the amen, he squeezed our hands, patted us on the back, said a few more kind words. “You’re not assholes,” he whispered with a wink. “The Bible tells us ‘Blessed are those who weep now, for they shall laugh later’ – Luke 6:21. Your dad, your brother, is laughing today in paradise, so don’t hold back just because he’s in a different place. Tell those stories. Remember the good times. Know that he’s laughing with you. He’d love that.”
Yeah, he would.
I started the road trip home the following day, making a pit stop at a pub owned by a friend. She’d seen my Dad’s obituary on Facebook and sent me her condolences. “Come by on your way back home. I’ll send some to-go plates home with you, on the house,” she had added.
I paused at the entrance of the pub. Taped to the door was a flyer with a graphic of a big microphone, announcing there were still spots available for a standup comedy class the following weekend. Without a second thought, I pulled out my phone and signed up at the URL listed on the website.
The following weekend, I spent the day learning the basics of standup comedy, then did my first set ever.
I sucked.
Everyone does in the beginning. Standup is harder than it looks. Having been a writer for much of my adult life, I had plenty of experience writing humorous content but found those skills didn’t necessarily translate to performing comedy.
But I stuck with it.
I started going to open mics, made friends with fellow comics, and studied audiences to see what made them laugh. Within the next 5 years I had worked my way up to headlining shows, had started producing standup showcases, and even made it into the lineup for a comedy festival. Comedy brought joy and connection into my life like nothing else, and I can’t help but feel like my dad had led me to it.
It was a journey I had hoped to continue, but then Covid happened, and you know the rest.
Throughout the first couple of years of the pandemic, virtual comedy shows and joke writing hangouts helped to fill that void. Now that most of the world has returned to normal, those gatherings have largely disappeared too. Fortunately, I stumbled into the Covid-Cautious community on Twitter and found a home there, slinging jokes 280 characters at a time.
We all have a job to do in life, and I firmly believe that mine is to help people find the funny in the fuckery.
I’m thankful to have connected with you there. You keep me laughing too. I never take for granted how precious that is. Like the wise old pastor had explained after my dad’s memorial service, laughter and tears are inextricably woven together in the fabric of grief. We’re all grieving the loss of the lives we lived up until the spring of 2020. So much of what made us feel safe and comfortable and valued is gone. Being brave enough to face that reality and fight for our continued existence in a world that has all but told us to fuck off and die is HARD. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t still laugh at the insanity of it all with you.
The worse things get, the more we need the escape valve of laughter. The more intentional we must be about seeking out laughs and sharing them with others. I’m not suggesting you sneak onto some asshole’s yard late at night and scatter ashes or anything like that, of course. But if you’d like a few ideas for ways to find humor in the mundane and obscene, here are some suggestions.
1) Jump on any streaming service and search for standup comedy specials. Look for comedians you have something in common with. Gary Gulman, for instance, tells jokes about his battles with severe depression. Tiffany Haddish speaks about growing up in the foster care system. Hannah Gadsby’s masterfully told stories resonate with LGBTQ+ and autistic audiences. My current favorite comedy special is Sinbad’s Afros and Bellbottoms. He tells stories about growing up poor in the 70s/80s in a way that makes you feel like you missed out if you didn’t have those same experiences.
Watch a few comedy specials and you’ll quickly discover a theme; the funniest jokes and the most hilarious stories are often rooted in pain and trauma. Laughing about them with the comedian and the recorded live audience has a weird and wonderful way of making you feel a little less lonely. Next, check out some specials by comedians with different backgrounds and life experiences from yours. You might be surprised at what resonates with you in their performances as well. Find the voices in comedy that speak your truths and bring you good, hard belly laughs. And don't forget to follow your favorite comedians on social media, where you can interact with them and fellow fans to keep the laughs coming.
2) Think about unavoidable things that are miserable or frustrating. Pick one and turn it into a game - like Seagull Bingo. If a flock of birds is shitting on your car, don’t get upset. Keep score based on who gets the most shit on their side of the car, declare a winner and turn it into a memory that you can hold close to your heart and laugh about someday at a loved one’s funeral. My latest game is the Droppin’ Shit Olympics. Thanks to arthritis in my hands my grip strength sucks, so I’m forever dropping things. It happens regularly. There’s not much I can do to stop it. But rather than get pissed off at myself about it, I give myself points. Bonus points if I break shit when I drop it! My spouse rarely drops things so I end up amassing all the points. I’m on track to become a gold medalist in the DSO. I’m representing the USA with big droppin’ shit energy and I’m going to make you all proud!
3) Start FAF (Funny as Fuck!) folders. My grandma was the OG when it came to filing away funnies. She kept a folder of unintentionally funny newspaper clippings. I vividly remember her laughing so hard she got dizzy over the obvious typo in an ad for a 3-Pack of Men’s Work Shits, and the awkward obituary of some guy named Ron, which stated he was a beloved husband, father, and long-time alcoholic member of the AAA. You could tell whomever wrote it was trying to pay homage to his recovery and convey he was a beloved member of the Alcoholics Anonymous community, but boy did they fuck up the wording, and weirdly pledged his allegiance to the American Automobile Association instead. I have a FAF folder on my computer and my phone. My photo album has a FAF folder with hundreds of pictures in it that have no common theme, except that they guarantee me a laugh every time I look at them. This came in handy in the before-Covid times when I worked in a travel-heavy job. One evening I was on a plane that had to make an emergency landing due to damage on the wing, which I could see right outside of my window. I had two choices; have a panic attack, or find a way to distract myself. I pulled out my phone, opened up my FAF photos, and snickered my way through them until we were safely on the ground. You get the idea - whenever you come across something that makes you guffaw, stash it away in a place where you can easily find it. Build a collection. And when things suck and there’s nothing you can do about it, pull out your FAF folder and allow yourself to escape there for a moment. Laughter is one of the best analgesics in the world. It doesn't solve your problems, but it can take the ache away long enough for you to catch your breath before returning to whatever difficulty you're faced with in the moment.
4) If you’re not already following Judah Friedlander (@JudahWorldChamp), give him a follow. He hosts virtual standup comedy shows from time to time, which are largely attended by Covid-cautious folks. You can opt to join his shows with your camera and mic on if you want to be part of the crowd work, or leave them off if you prefer privacy (kudos to him for the inclusivity). His shows always include jokes that resonate with the Covid-cautious community. The shows I’ve attended have done a lot of heavy lifting for my mental health over this past year. It’s hard to explain why, but it just feels pretty damn good to be in the same room laughing with like-minded people and finding the levity in our shared struggles, even if that room is a virtual meeting space.
5) Last but not least - share what makes you laugh! Comedy is a conversation, a give-and-take. Tell your friends about the comedy special you watched that made you chuckle till you cried, so they can watch it too. Post some of your favorite funny pics or memes so your contacts can enjoy them as well. Tell your awkward, embarrassing, or otherwise ridiculous stories. I guarantee you someone out there will be able to relate and they'll be grateful you made them smile. In our community, we’re great about doomsharing. We can count on each other for the bad news, the brutal honesty, the hard truths nobody else wants to hear. Most of the time, we’re good about balancing it with some levity, but it’s easy to lose our sense of humor when the state of the world is as shitty as it is now. It’s times like these when we need laughter the most, even if it feels counterintuitive. The days when I’m feeling the unfunniest are the days when I make the biggest effort to find the funny in the fuckery. It’s always there. Some days I have to look harder than others to find it, but once I do, I promise to share it with you. I hope you’ll do the same.
Life is short. For many of us, it’s probably going to be even shorter than what we’d anticipated before Covid disrupted our lives. It helps to cry about it. It helps to laugh about it. It helps to do those things together as a family, as a community, even when we’re scattered around the globe and our touchpoints are largely virtual. They’re as valid and meaningful as every other form of connection in our lives.
I’d like to think that somewhere in the afterlife, my dad is laughing along with us at the absurdity of all that is wrong with this world. I’d like to think that he’s happier than he’s ever been, now that he knows the punchline to the joke we call life.
And I’d like to think they have karaoke night wherever he is, and he slays every time he gets up to sing Mr. Boombastic, and he's never lonely because he has tons of friends, and he owns a home.
With hydrangeas planted all over the yard.
I hope he’ll leave the porch light on for me whenever it’s my turn to make that journey. That way I can come inside and tell him how much I laughed in the days following his death, how healing it was for me and my brothers, and how it led me to become a comedian who eventually assumed the identity of a rodent that shitposted on Twitter throughout a global pandemic.
He wouldn’t think any of that was funny, though.
He’d think it was fucking hilarious.
In good humor and solidarity,
Guiness Pig
"I'm going to do what I've always done in the face of tragedy, and that's try to be funny." - Pete Davidson
You can support my work by signing up for a membership to The Guiness Pig Diaries or buying me a coffee.