Good Medicine

We excused ourselves from our father’s hospital room; my siblings and I did, and slipped out quietly. It was a Saturday, near lunchtime, and we were headed to the Pizza Hut across the street. Our father, the man who had labored all his life to keep food on our table would, we knew, receive nourishment for the remainder of his days from a plastic bag dripping into a tube. We kissed our father, promised we wouldn’t be long, and walked toward the hospital elevator.

When the elevator reached the first floor, its doors opened to a deserted lobby in a major Pittsburgh medical center. Both the lobby and the city street beyond the glass doors seemed uncharacteristically quiet, lacking people and activity. The security guard desk sat unattended, and the silence which filled the lobby was downright creepy. When I said I needed to stop and use the restroom before leaving the building, my sister said, “Make sure you sing so we know you’re alright in there.”

As my siblings waited in the abandoned lobby I began, in my best Ethel Merman voice, to belt out,

I like New York in June, how about you?

I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?

I walked out of the ladies’ room and was met by the formerly absent security guard. He looked at me and, in all seriousness, asked, “Do you need any help?”

I believe my sister may have suggested to him I’d just been let out of the psych ward on a weekend pass.

Once the laughter started, it was impossible to contain. We crossed the street, got ourselves seated, and placed our orders; but I have no idea how we managed to eat. The laughter was the kind that built on itself, the kind that escalated in response to things not remotely funny on most days of the week. It was the kind of laughter that made our eyes water and caused us to choke on our food and spew it out of our mouths. Our laughter was messy, loud, and simply would not bed down and keep quiet.

I sincerely hope we tipped our poor waitress well that day.

It seemed wrong, indulging in laughter so outrageous and deep, as our father lay dying in a hospital bed across the street. “Even in laughter, the heart may ache,” reads the proverb. (Proverbs 14:13) While seated in that pizza shop in downtown Pittsburgh, mine certainly did.

I wonder, sometimes, why God created us with the ability to laugh. He certainly didn’t have to. There was no instruction manual He was commanded to follow. When He gathered up that first fistful of dust and began forming us, there were no laws, regulations, or requirements obligating Him to include laughter as part of the package

Scripture tells us God created us in His image, and so I have to believe our ability to laugh reflects something of His character.  When I allow myself to think about the laughter of God, I start thinking that feasting with Him and the rest of the family throughout eternity might be an awful lot of outrageous fun. I imagine all of heaven filling with peals of unrestrained laughter and joy. I think sitting around the family table in heaven may, by comparison, make lunch with my siblings look no wilder than a Sunday afternoon catechism class

I think another reason God created us with the capacity for laughter, though, is this: He knew how desperately we would need it. We get glimpses, now and then, of just how painful and broken this world is. Having to bear the weight of the grief and sorrows of this world without the respite of laughter would, I imagine, undo the heartiest among us.

A joyful heart is good medicine, reads another proverb. (Proverbs 17:22)

And on a quiet Saturday afternoon in a pizza shop in Pittsburgh, it was for me.

Writing in community with Deidra @ Jumping Tandem as part of The High Calling writing project on laughter.

And linking with emily for imperfect prose: