Laughter

I love to laugh and I love to make other people laugh. I consider this a precious gift, laughter. If I can somehow make anything into a joke, I will. This has made me many friends through the years. It has also made me many enemies. Some people find me very obnoxious and unfunny. These people have no sense of humor.

Tonight as I sat in Mom's hospital room with two of my sisters and we laughed until we cried, I realized it is a family illness. My mom is in such a state of constant pain that they have given her a patient-controlled demoral drip that can be activated every ten minutes. She doesn't need it that often, but close. This demoral makes her as high as a kite and quite frankly, hilarious.

I tried not to laugh at first, but Linda and I together with such ridiculous things going on could never accomplish such a feat. Soon we were laughing nearly non-stop. Especially when Mom commented on the orange hat Linda was wearing while we fed her supper. There was no hat. Deer in the dining room. I became batwoman. She has a wire frame that keeps the covers off of her leg and foot. She keeps waking up wondering why on earth she is in a barrel. It does look like one. She types and does all sorts of things that are both sad and funny. It is not really funny at all. None of us can stand to see Mom so out of it, but what can we do? It is necessary right now. When Pam arrived on the scene, she chastised us severely for laughing so much. Until Mom started talking about the stagecoach and then had an imaginary ice cream cone. Oh yeah, Pam was wiping the tears of laughter away with a kleenex. We are pathetic.

It is so hard to think of what the future holds for Mom. Diabetic neuropathy is some scary stuff. We are really enjoying the laughter while we can because this is probably gonna get ugly before we are done. Keep us all in your prayers.

PS. We also cry as bad as we laugh when the circumstances warrant. We cry ugly too. Square mouths, too many tears and lots of snorts. We just got a double helping of emotions, I suppose.