Laugh to Keep from Crying

Mom sometimes said

At the dermatologist’s office in Tifton, Georgia, a young woman in blue scrubs and with long, naturally blonde hair parted down the middle asked me many questions while I was perched on a mechanical chair. I’d already answered them on the information sheet while in the waiting room, so I offered a new tidbit, “I’ll be 61 years old soon, and I’m not pregnant.” (Boy, howdy, these days they’re even asking the men that question.)

The young woman was tickled, and in hindsight I realized I reminded her of someone. She began telling me about her grandmother who was “a hippy” and “a little out there.” Well…I *was* wearing a peasant blouse and had offered her some absurd personal information before she asked…

Anyway, Hippy Grandmother was widowed recently, and wasting no time, Hippy Grandmother’s neighbor, Charlie, began appearing at her door, casseroles in hand. Granddaughter said she could tell Charlie had been a very handsome man in his youth and suggested that Hippy Grandmother might return more than just empty casserole dishes.

Hippy Grandmother had already survived breast cancer, but another bodily foe came calling, leukemia. “It’s the bad kind,” Granddaughter said, adding, “it’s terminal.” According to the oncologist, the latter could happen within a half year or so.

Undeterred, neighbor Charlie still came calling, more casseroles in hand. Hippy Grandmother told Granddaughter he was a pretty good cook, but she wasn’t interested: “I’m mournin’ and I’m dyin’.” Granddaughter was caught a little off guard that Hippy Grandmother spoke so frankly about dying. I suggested that perhaps that was her way of accepting the situation, saying it aloud.

On her weekly visits to Hippy Grandmother, Granddaughter noticed the empty casserole dishes to be returned were no longer sitting around, and she inquired after Charlie. “He’s over there at his house, and he needs to stay over there,” she was tersely told.

I committed in my heart to pray for Hippy Grandmother. Kudos to Charlie for his kindness, but it appears even a hippy grandmother who was a little out there foresaw that she should not encourage anything that might later break his heart. She was mournin’ and dyin’ and did not want to impose that on her good-looking neighbor.

I did what my mother who worked in geriatric care nearly forty years said to do, laughed to keep from crying.