When Humor Works and When it Doesn't . Laughter and Healing

Give a Moose a beer and you never know what will happen.

Must be Moosehead Beer !!!!!!
This actually happened with some guys from Maine.

They dressed the truck up with a guy dummy spread-eagled on the roof of the truck.
The driver and passenger put on Moose Heads.

Down the Maine Toll interstate they went, causing about 16 accidents.

Then they went to jail.

I used to use the expression "drop-dead beautiful"- until a former Breck girl of my acquaintance dropped dead of cancer, leaving a husband with two small children to raise on his own.

Men have a harder time convincing themselves to think of a hospital stay as a spa vacation. They express their emotions differently. A woman might tell her husband " I can't wait to get home to you." My husband kept repeating different variations of "Get me out of here or shoot me."

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought a Nerf-N-Strike Blaster.  At $11, my plan was to pack in in my bag and ambush him the next time my love said "just shoot me." 

Only something happened that made a perfectly funny joke horribly inappropriate.

Last week, a dear neighbor knocked on the door. With his oldest daughter's wedding in less than two weeks, it would be natural to have a day-off to attend last minute details related to the celebration. His face was lined and eyes downcast- I reassured him that Gerry is well on the mend. I shared my planned joke. Our neighbor went absolutely white.

It turned out his ex-wife chose that very morning to shoot herself.

Suicide. I remember years ago, when I drove to work listening to one of Dr. Laura Schlesinger's radio diatribes, she was lecturing on the dynamic of anger in the taking of such irrevocable action. All these years late what she said struck an ever more real personal chord. The anger it takes to thumb your nose at the gift of life- especially coming into a season of joy- the woman who took her life was a fool.

Every ounce of sympathy and compassion I feel is not for the woman who chose to violently end her life, but for those who ever dared love her. I will know their healing has begun when I see them laugh.

Gerry is home, his body teaching it is actually faster to cruise than try to race back to normalcy.    

With this new found wisdom, my husband chose the landscape deer needlepoint  that took a billion years to complete, not to mention the bag of gold to properly frame, for Nerf target practice. Instead of stomping my feet like Rumpelstiltskin,  I laughed out laughed out loud.

 Laughter, being involuntary, is a beacon that I have faith that God shall continue to guide my husband's full recovery. We are overjoyed that with just a couple exceptions, every hour brings a sign of renewed fortitude. Long before the next hunting season, Gerry will be in prime physical shape,back  to stalking wild game with his brother and our sons. Though perhaps armed with a camera.

This Thanksgiving will be quite unconventional. In our home it will be quiet, with feasting curtailed. This year it will be impossible for any tradition to overpower the raising of learnest prayers of Thanksgiving to God for the good fortune and love which surrounds us.

Thank you to Judy Duvall for passing the photo and top story. The visual is so funny, factuality doesn't matter.