My mother, maybe two weeks before she died, was in her bedroom when a hospice nurse, social worker and someone from a physical therapy place arrived to speak with her.  The previous hospice had declined to give her physical therapy, not because they were mystified that she wasn’t dead already, not because it was pointless to give her the illusion that she was fighting to get stronger when death was days away, but on the grounds that she was too demented to remember the instructions of the physical therapist.

I was incensed, switched from incompetent, vicious Vitas (this conclusion about dementia was but one of their criminal bits of negligence)  back to the other hospice, who’s name escapes me, and a day or two later these three arrived to assess my mother for physical therapy.  I was in the kitchen when these three women went into the bedroom where my mother was resting on the bed.  Within a minute I heard one of the women laughing, soon they were all cracking up.  There were several peals of laughter.  I have no idea what my mother was saying, but the effect was pretty dramatic.

“One thing for sure, your mother is not demented,” said the nurse coming out of the room with a big smile still on her face.  They started physical therapy the next day, and she did pretty well that first session, but session two had to be postponed so she could be admitted to Hospice By The Sea to die a few days later.

I think about this because, while I’m not up against an imminent death sentence as my mother was, I am living a stressful enough existence these days, no income, escalating health insurance, a program that works amazingly but that I haven’t managed to monetize, recruit the people I need to turn it into a sustainable business, blah blah.  There are days when I’m feeling quite desperate about things.  I spend long stretches alone wondering what I was thinking.

Nonetheless, wake me from a sound sleep on one of these days, like my wasted, napping mother, and I will find my footing in the conversation pretty quickly.  There will often be a chuckle or two, even though a moment before I may have been dreaming of my unfair and gratuitous execution.  

Laughter is like medicine, it is medicine, there is nothing as good for you as a good laugh.  At least that’s the way it feels to me, the dramatic reminder that in the midst of horror there is still a moment to lose yourself and your troubles in a roar that makes your heart leap and clears out everything else.