A few years back, my world, as I knew it, fell apart. Systems I had believed supported me suddenly let me down and things I had once thought defined me had to be let go. The chaos was unrelenting. I could barely check my phone or sit at my laptop without being assaulted by the next barrage of bad news.
One of my clients at that time was a rising star in the bath and beauty product industry. She had bounced back from more than a lioness’ share of adversity in her own life, although there had been times along the way when her only comfort was to shut herself in the bathroom, pour a hot bath and soak for as long as she could hide herself away. Over the years, her ritual evolved to add herbs, oils and other ingredients to the mix that made the experience even more soothing and restorative. That recipe would eventually inspire her popular collection of bath and beauty products.
The day before one of our conference calls, she had taped an interview about her business for a national television show. As the cameras rolled and she told her story, she described the circumstances that had made her life difficult and, inadvertently, led to her success. When it came time to sum up, a single reflection sprang to mind that she had to choke back to avoid blurting out to the nationwide audience: you gave me all that sh-t and I made a bath.
When she told me that, I howled out loud. It was the first time I had laughed in months. Then she paused on the line, and when she spoke again, it was with a voice that sounded somehow more somber and resonant than her own. “I have come into your life at this time to teach you how to laugh at your situation.”
Just like that, my lighthearted client was back, we were discussing the role of indemnities in commercial contracts and it was as if those words had never been uttered. But I would never forget what she had said.
When I sat back down at my desk, I returned to the correspondence that had been bleeding me like a knife before our call. I thought I heard something unusual and strained my ears to try to hear it again. There it was: a giggle! And it seemed to be coming from me.
I cocked my head to one side and stared at the torturous words on the page from a slightly different angle. Suddenly they took on the quality of a madcap comedy caper or a comic strip complete with cartoon characters, captions and thought bubbles. My giggle turned into a snort, followed by a guffaw and then a roar, until eventually I let myself slide from my chair to the rug underneath, surrendering to laughter so robust that it made my sides hurt and tears stream down my face. There really was no other way to look at the situation: I couldn’t have made this sh-t up if I’d tried.
After that, I pretty much kept laughing no matter what life threw at me. Laughter became my superpower. Whenever someone told me that I should stop laughing – which did happen on more than one occasion – I would respond sweetly with the same reply: “Isn’t it better than the alternative?”
In time, the dust cleared and we built a beautiful new life. My boys were thriving – so much so, that one of them was even shouted out for his benevolence with a school Kindness Award. When he got to the office to accept the Award, he was shown an overflowing treasure chest of prizes and told to take his pick. At that time, there was only one thing in the world that terrified his brother, and that was a particular franchise of zombie teddy bears. At the back of the bin, perfectly enough, was a gruesome poster of those same zombie teddy bears. He knew at once that he must have it. When he got home, he announced proudly that the poster would be going up on the wall of the bedroom he and his brother shared.
“IT WILL NNNNOOOOOOTTTTTT!” shrieked his brother. Within seconds, the poster had caused an all-out brawl that had turned my kids into a rapid blur of fists and feet. One of them cried out in agony as the other stomped on his toes, hard.
“Hey, do you realize you’re hurting each other over a Kindness Award?” I entreated as I ran towards the boys to break up their fight, noting them pause long enough to laugh at the irony of that before continuing to pummel each other.
“I’m sorry if I wasn’t taking your pain very seriously,” I said once the fracas was over to the brother with the wounded toes. “But when I brought up the Kindness Award, you stopped screaming and burst out laughing.”
“But Mom,” he protested in earnest. “We don’t feel pain when we laugh!”
And I just stared at him. Could it be that he was right – whether the pain was physical or emotional? I hugged him, prepared to embrace the possibility.
These days it can be challenging to find humour in the face of our daily newsfeed. I find myself tuning out the noise and getting my news – if I really need it – from late-night comedians skilled in the art of conveying the day’s top stories while somehow managing to keep things light. When even they can’t be upbeat, I defer to my children, who can always point me to a meme or YouTube video that will give me a good laugh.
Someday – hopefully not too far away – this pandemic will go the way of the zombie teddy bear poster. It still hangs in our house as a piece of our history. But it has now been completely eclipsed by a Bill Slavin cartoon that we mounted overtop in the same frame. We didn’t let that grim scene hold our attention forever. It was only an underpinning for something brighter and more joyful that was to come.
Babble by Anita Odessa