Laughter in Pain

Wednesday morning, December 19, 2007 [Less than one week ‘till Christmas!]

Last night Annis and I attended a Christmas party with some long-time friends, along with some not-so-long time friends, at O’Charley’s restaurant here in Macon. Hmmm, let me count; there were seventeen of us present and accounted for, with two of the group “missing in action.” We ranged in age from 20 something to 70+, with 8 males and 9 females. Although we came from different backgrounds, eleven of us had one particular commonality—to one degree or another we are involved in funeral service. Three of us are actually licensed as Funeral Directors/Embalmers and the rest work in various supportive roles. Two of us are ordained ministers! Needless to say, O’Charley’s will never be the same!

From my vantage point, everyone had a great time, as was evidenced by the abundance of laughing and talking and EATING, and that is a good thing—a very good thing! As God’s providence would have it, I was honored to sit next to the other “ordained minister” and, as you can imagine, we had quite a time (well, I did, to be sure!). Although he is much younger than I, he is almost as crazy as I (not yet certified crazy, but almost!), so believe me, we had fun!

As I watched everyone laughing and having a grand ole time, I couldn’t help but think about what was beneath the surface of the laughter. Because I know each of them, I was very aware that our laughter was like a medicine, a medicine we all needed. Without exception, every person in our group is very familiar with the heartache and pain and confusion and sense of helplessness that so often accompanies this life. You would be hard-put to imagine a difficulty that someone in this group has not experienced—family problems, financial problems, marriage problems, children problems, medical problems, vocation problems, ad infinitum.

One of the group told me that his brother and sister-in-law were recently involved in a motorcycle accident, both with serious injuries, no insurance, no money, two children, and intoxicated at the time of the accident; another of the group had a young family member commit suicide not too long ago; several of the group are dealing with children who have addiction problems; one of the group just had shoulder surgery; another of the group has a son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren serving in the Air Force in Korea; another of the group had a very-near-death experience resulting from a ruptured aorta, that left him with several permanent physical problems; and on and on it goes.

Tragically, this is true regardless of the group; it is simply impossible to gather a group of people together who are not very familiar with the very difficult difficulties that accompany this life. We do a pretty good job of pretending most of the time because we do not want others to think that we are going through difficult times—we do not want others to feel sorry for us, or to know about our personal stuff, certainly not to think less of us than they already do!

I found this very revealing last night: after the party but before I had left the room, someone was already talking with me about some very difficult “stuff” that he was presently experiencing. Yes, we can laugh loudly and heartily and it is good to do so—VERY GOOD; however, as hard as we might laugh, that all-too-familiar pain is always lurking just beneath the surface of the laughter, eagerly awaiting to sink it claws into our hearts again, doing its best to bring about death.

A good Funeral Director does everything he/she can to make death look like life and, believe me, sometimes that is no easy task.