You want to feel disoriented and uncomfortable in your own skin? Try laughing at a funeral.
It’s a very specific brand of emotional relief, one that can’t divest itself fully from feelings of guilt. You immediately start second-guessing yourself in those moments. The laughter is cathartic, but it feels wrong. It’s healthy, but feels disrespectful. Housing instincts that are so diametrically opposed, it’s a wonder we don’t explode in those moments. It’s a good thing that doesn’t happen, though, or else life would be unnecessarily difficult for the clean-up guy.
“Another funny funeral, Bob?”
“Yup. We’re gonna need another mop.”
Very specific conditions have to exist in order for us to laugh in such moments. First, the death can’t have been tragic in any way. Even cracking a mere smile of remembrance is only justified when the deceased has led a full, long life. If the recently departed was a World War II combat pilot who later became a Major League Baseball pitcher and the inventor of the DustBuster, then by all means, chuckle with fond reflection. Do it at anyone else’s funeral and you run the risk of a mourner socking you in the eye with the blunt end of a votive candle.
Second, the death should have put an end to suffering. It’s no fun when a loved one is mired in pain. When the pain ends, it allows us to sigh in relief, and even find our humor again as we relive the memories we’ve shared with that person. We can finally laugh at the time they woke us at 3 a.m. with a tuba blast to the ear and played “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” in their nightcap and stockings. Not that it was funny in the moment.
My grandfather never woke me up with a tuba. He never played Major League Baseball. But his life was long, and he never stopped filling it. Indulge me, if you will, while I remember him.
When I think of him, I think of the skies. He was never a combat pilot, but he was a mechanic for the Air Force when the U.S. was giving Hitler the third degree. Despite never taking to the air, it undoubtedly gave him great pleasure to contribute to the American cause. He was the first member of the family born in this country, and always had a great love for it. Even when bellbottoms and caterpillar sideburns were all the rage, which is saying something.
His affinity for aircraft never waned, even as he entered his so-called “golden years.” In his seventies, he learned how to use a computer so he could start playing flight simulations. On a trip to Florida when I was a boy, I spent hours with him in his computer room as he taught me the finer points of takeoff and landing. He never got impatient or frustrated when I landed the planes crookedly or smashed nose-first into the side of a mountain; he was just happy to be spending time with me, sharing with his grandson a hobby that he loved.
But to me, what exemplifies his character most is a VHS tape that was sent to my family some 18 years ago. My grandfather, you see, decided that his 75th birthday was the ideal occasion in which to jump out of a plane for the first time. A staff videographer at his local skydiving outfit captured the highlights. What intrigued me, as I watched the clip for the first time, was the total lack of fear on my grandfather’s face. At a moment when most people would be soiling their respective undies, Joe Theriault peered through the open door to the vast expanse of Earth below him, and smiled as if he were a child engaged with a new toy. He exhibited no trepidation as he jumped. He simply took a breath, and with a trained professional strapped to his back, leaned forward, letting wind and gravity take him on the ultimate tour of the clouds.
He didn’t just sit around and exist until the end. He lived. Right up to his last moment, he lived. There’s a lesson there for all of us.
There are certain things you do when you lose someone. You cry. You reflect. You bring the person up in your mind and try to hold onto the intangibles, the sound of their voice or the way they walked, because a part of you knows you’ll never experience those things again -- whether your conscious mind is ready to admit it or not. No two situations are the same, of course, but these are all normal responses. It’s what we do as human beings. It’s how we cope.
To think of his death in tragic terms, though, would be a disservice to how he lived his life. This is a man who survived the Great Depression, fought a war, raised a family, retired early and spent his latter half on the decks of ocean liners cruising the world. There’s nothing tragic about that. His heroism is largely unsung, but he’s perhaps one of the few true American success stories, and without gloating about it to anyone, he knew it. If life is a wet rag, he wrung it dry. He was happy, and thinking about that makes me happy, too.
When we reach that stage in our mourning, we once more allow ourselves certain comforts. We start smiling again. We go back to work and find ourselves whistling along to the car radio, enjoying the tiny moments in spite of ourselves. For me, the turning point came when I thought of my grandfather leaping from the plane, his arms splayed, cheeks rippling with the sheer velocity. The abandon of it. The memory made me laugh, and it felt strange at first, a taboo. Then I realized it was okay. It only meant that his memory would be a positive one, which is all he ever wanted.
We should all strive to leave such impressions behind. And if we live our lives the way he did, we will.
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