Holiday Grief. Holiday Humor.

In 2000, I self-published a little gift book ("more than a card, not quite a book") titled "What Saved Me: A Dozen Ways to Embrace Life" under my pen name, Claire Starr. One of the dozen "ways" I wrote about was humor, and I share that with you now.

Next year, Lucky Press will bring out a revised, second edition, of "What Saved Me." This time, I will use my real name!

“Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I’ve had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.” –Katharine Hepburn

“Humor is the basis of dignity, and when it goes you are lost.” –David Gebernter

.......When I was a teenager, I loved shopping for school clothes in August with my mother, a busy woman who worked a full-time, demanding job when the majority of middle-class mothers were at home. I remember trying on new shoes and dancing around the shoe store light-heartedly. My mother, as she did so many times over the years, would shake her head and say, “You are a funny girl.”

.......My parents identified my eldest sister, Joan, as smart, my next-oldest sister, Joyce, as loyal; I was known as funny. Mother once told me that I was the one who made my father laugh, and, considering the fact that he suffered from depression for much of his adult life, I guess this was an accomplishment. I certainly see this sense of humor in both of my sons, although each expresses it in his own way. I’ve found humor to be very healing for all of us.

.......When battling depression right after my divorce, I would borrow, from the library, books and videos that made me laugh, certain that it was similar to providing my body with a much-needed dose of vitamins. I bought The Big Book of Humor and watched movies like What About Bob?, Groundhog Day, and Turner and Hooch.

.......One of the funniest things that happened to me took place a few years after my divorce, when money was tight. Joan, who worked at a job in "Corporate America" had always been generous with her clothes. At the start of a new winter season, she (in Ohio) would send me (in Florida) a nice box of hand-me-downs. As she had great taste, I was happy to get them.

.......In late November, I learned a box had been sent. My sister had mailed it from the UPS station within her local department store. The clothes had slipped my mind until she asked me about the box a few weeks later. I had never received it. Calls were made to UPS; they were unable to find it in their tracking system. Later, I was told the box might be in Nebraska; they would try to find it or would send a check if it didn’t turn up. Another week went by — no box. Christmas Day arrived. Then, a few days later, the box was found.

.......The clothes had been neatly packed by my Virgo sister inside of a box that had previously held cookware, Faberware. After being checked in at the UPS counter, the box made its way into the department store’s inventory system and eventually to the cookware shelf, where it sat patiently until the Christmas holidays. A few days before Christmas, a perfectly innocent young husband, with the best intentions, purchased a box of Faberware cookware for his wife for Christmas …

.......All I have to do is picture this woman’s face when she opened the box and found my sister’s shoes, sweaters, bright-colored socks, and slightly worn nightdress inside, and a smile will inevitably appear.

.......For many folks, December is not just about Hanukkah, Christmas, gifts, shopping, baking. It is about sadness, sorrow, loss, and grief. In our family, a first-cousin was murdered around this time of year, another first-cousin died in childbirth and we received her Christmas cards when she was in a coma. My deceased grandmother and father's birthdays are this month. My husband's mother and brother are both gone as well. Both my mother and Mark's father have December birthdays. They are 90 and 91, respectively, and thankfully still with us, yet each year is precious

.......I think of the infant son, born to my parents when I was three, whom I missed so much as a young girl, thinking how much fun it would have been to have a little brother. When I grew-up and had children, then went through divorce, I wondered what holidays would be like "after."

.......If we are in the midst of sadness, the temptation to smile might seem a slap in the face to whatever it is, or whomever it is, we are grieving. At some point the shock and disbelief of our circumstances become less acute. We are forever changed by events, but find a way to integrate reality into our daily life, so that we can go on. In this middle space, the demilitarized zone between incapacitation and acceptance (or the closest we will get to it), will be moments when we perch on the edge of some enjoyable experience and have to make the decision to fly forward, to feel something good, or to stay. We can decide to smile, to laugh, but then we remember what has happened ...

.......We may, consciously or unconsciously, feel guilty for finding a reason to smile when we once thought we never would again, or when someone close to us has lost that opportunity forever. But if we allow ourselves to embrace life, those we love are honored, and the part of them inside of us has a chance to live on … one form of eternal life. Of course the ability to enjoy life after a death or a shock takes time, and we must allow ourselves and others time to heal, without requiring them to “put on a happy face.” Harriet Rochlin is quoted as saying, “Laughter can be more satisfying than honor; more precious than money; more heart-cleansing than prayer.” I think she was right.

.......In Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me, Charles Schulz wrote, “You cannot create humor out of happiness … Drama and humor come from trouble and sadness, and mankind’s astounding ability to survive life’s unhappiness. It is a virtual miracle that we have existed over these millions of years against such deplorable odds, when everything is against us.”

.......The human ability to cope and to heal is a miraculous thing. I encourage you to allow humor to enter your heart and mind and help the process of healing.

“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.” –Walt Whitman

© 2000 Janice Phelps Williams

www.janicephelps.com

12/2010