Posted on: Sunday, March 13, 2005
FAMILY MATTERS
Laughter is best medicine now and forever
By Michael C. DeMattos
I am a pretty jovial guy; I tell jokes, poke fun at friends and even pull pranks on rare occasions. Still, as the years roll by, I notice that I do not laugh as much as I used to. I am not talking about chuckles or guffaws or the giggles, I am talking about the laugh-out-loud type of laugh. I'm talking about contagious, hysterical laughter that often has more tears than sound. The one where you clutch your stomach as tears squish down your cheeks and wave off people who believe you may be having a heart attack.
Laughter is like a welcome disease; it infects one person at first and spreads like wildfire to all those around. But unlike other infections that hurt and harm, laughter seems to heal. Laughter, like other emotions, unites us, saving our place among the living. Nothing reveals our humanity more than the uncontrollable laughing-fit.
It seems that the times I have laughed hardest, I have hurt the most. It sounds incongruent, I know, but when it comes right down to it our emotions are a jumbled mess anyway. I know that I have laughed so hard that I have cried and I have cried so hard that I have laughed. It's as if my emotions demanded to be felt in totality, all at once.
Several years ago, I attended my uncle's funeral. The church was filled from altar to entranceway. I sat off to one side, flanked by my closest relatives. About midway through the service I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, to find my cousin, kissing distance from my ear. A mountainous man, covered head to toe with hair, it was like snuggling with a grizzly.
Softly he asked me when I had last attended church. I whispered back that it had been years. In fact, it may have been the last family funeral.
Slowly I saw his eyes climb the nearest pillar. His gaze came to rest on a shiny white ceramic tile, perched directly over my head. The tile was dangling by one edge, having worked free from the cement and grout that once held it in place. "I think you are overdue. That tile seems aimed at you," he said. Then, one by one each of my family members, my wife, brother and cousins, began to slowly inch away from me.
It started with a snort and swallowed chuckle. I tried to hold it at bay, I promise, but the laughter came and there was no stopping it. I put my hand over my mouth and made a beeline for the door. I plopped down on the church steps and, one by one, my cousin, my brother and finally my wife came out to join me. We laughed and cried and held each other tight.
After the mass, our priest pulled up next to me. I was busted for sure. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and said some things that I will never forget. "It always happens at the worst times, doesn't it — the laughing fits, I mean." I nodded my head in agreement. "I saw the tile," he said, "and I think it is time you came back to church." With that the floodgates opened again and the tears overflowed.
Life is no picnic and it seems that when times are tough we need to share a good laugh more than anything else. Maybe it is the gravity of the situation or the absurdity of our tenuous grasp on life, in either case it is clear that laughter is one of the surest signs that we remain among the living.
Family therapist Michael C. DeMattos has a master's degree in social work.
