“Try not to laugh.”
When I was six, I had surgery for a double hernia. Two weak areas of muscle in the lower abdominal wall, present from birth, needed repair. I don’t remember much about the experience, aside from counting backwards while receiving anesthesia, waking up on a cold gurney in a hospital hallway, and a bedside visit that evening by my father and uncle. From the perspective of a six year-old, there was nothing funny about the ordeal. It was scary (especially when I got short of breath counting backwards) and it was serious, real serious (the boy in the hospital bed next to me the night before my surgery was recovering from a head injury after crashing his bike at high speed).
And it was painful. The hernias themselves had never hurt. But the surgical fix, a procedure involving stretching and resewing layers of muscle together, sure did. I have no recollection of the surgeon or the nurses or anyone who worked in the hospital. I do, however, remember the advice that someone told my mother when I was lying foggy-brained in the hospital corridor. Moving was good but it would make the pain worse. Ice cream helped. I was to feel lucky that I wasn’t the boy in the other hospital bed. And I should try not to laugh.
There is nothing in my memory between the hallway and the evening meal. I am simply there, curled up under crisp white sheets, my head on one but two pillows. My father and uncle have just arrived. It is after dinner. Dad has parked his wheelchair at the foot of my bed. My uncle is pacing the room, looking at me, then uneaten food on the dinner tray, then the empty hospital bed next to mine.
“Where’s your roommate?”
“Home,” I burped. How someone could crash his bicycle so badly he needed surgery one week and then go home the next was a wonder to me. I didn’t tell that though to my uncle or father. Because it hurt to talk. Also, mysteriously, a bowl of Dairy Queen soft-serve ice cream had appeared on my hospital tray. So I braved the two feet of empty space between ice cream and my mouth with a slow, intentional reach. Two spoonfuls of cold vanilla later, I realized that my visitors were enjoying the view from their side of the room. That wasn’t surprising: my uncle had a way of looking like he always saw something on the horizon, even if the visibility was poor or the space was small. And my father used to watch him and wait for an inevitably unexpected observation.
“Better than the alternative,” my uncle smiled.
What alternative? That didn’t seem like a nice thing to say. Had he heard about the kid? The boy’s head had been all wrapped up in gauze. He had crashed his bike going almost sixty miles-per-hour down a hill (he had told me that himself). He had talked almost as fast as he rode a bike.
The pair of male mentors in my life must have sensed a bit too much ernestness from the hospital room’s remaining occupant. No doubt I had the early version of that jutting jaw I get when think something is serious. So, alas, they started into their unique version of a hospital comedy routine. Alone, neither was very funny. Together, they were unusually comical. An odd couple. Just like my favorite TV and film duo, Laurel and Hardy.
There’s probably no need for me to finish the story. Of course they made me laugh. Of course it hurt. Of course the ice cream and the laughter made me feel better.
We live in such serious times. A pandemic, political and social discord, dramatic climate-caused calamity – the year has not had much cause for joy. Unfortunately, there aren’t many indicators that the next few months will be a whole lot better. Previously, I have written about the importance of respectful action in response to appropriate feelings of outrage. Some people have asked me how I can reconcile recognition of an emotion as powerful as outrage with an encouragement to publicly engage with purpose, with accountability, with deliberation. There is a palpable dissonance in the space between such intensity of emotion (“outrage”) and the recommended response (“thoughtful action”). The gap can feel like an unbridgeable void.
That’s where we need to remember laughter. No, there is nothing funny about bigotry, inequity, and injustice. There is no humor in hatred. But we named ourselves sapiens for a reason. We have the ability to recognize emotion, to name it, to respond in ways that demonstrate reflection, planning. Being wise means so much more than being cognitively conscious. It means being responsible. Considerate. Goal-oriented. Collaborative.
It also means being funny. Wit and comedy are not for many circumstances. There are proper times for anger, for fear, for tears, and for solemnity. There must be ample time for outrage. But there must regularly be time to laugh – at ourselves, at each other, at our propensity for foolishness. We are an odd species. We have the ability to inhabit multiple planets in our solar system – or destroy everything we so often say we cherish. The birth lottery is ruthless for many. Any yet happiness does not seem restricted for those with material wealth and means. In fact, people with measurably less frequently find greater satisfaction and fulfillment. There is no foolproof formula for life. There is only the time we have to breathe and the learning that we have opportunity to share during that breathing.
Let us then keep finding ways to hold ourselves accountable while lifting, always lifting, eternally lifting and holding each other up. There should be joy that comes with being. There must be gratitude holding hands with disappointment. There should be miracle found within a good belly laugh.
Something painful doesn’t always need to hurt.