My Mother's Laugh

Everyone holds a certain role in their family. There can be the Kind One, the Black Sheep, the Old Soul, the Intellectual.

I've always found my place as The Comic Relief.

Funny, or Funny Looking?

One of my best qualities (and I really think it's important for people to quantify their best qualities) is my quick wit. Sure, it comes from decades of managing low self-esteem, molding it into a well-manufactured schtick, and cultivating it into a finessed ability to come up with a comeback instantly, but it's there, and it's incredibly important. I am usually able to diffuse a situation with a sentence.

My biological father didn't give me many genetic abilities (aside from the skills of singing and drinking a hairy dog under a table - is that how the idiom works?), but I am grateful to him for the innate stage presence I bring to any conversation. It has helped immensely in this challenging time.

My only reason for bringing this up is that my impulse to make my mother laugh has grown exponentially.

She has the best laugh. When you really have her going (see: "F 'em in the ear"), it's a gasping, paralyzed sight; her head falls back and her eyes squeeze shut, and she clasps her hands together like they've been glued, with her fingers interlaced and curled, and it's a millenium until she gasps for air and lets out a high-pitched squeal. I live for my mother's laugh.

And I know where that came from.

My mother and my bio-dad had an acrimonious divorce. Martin was a horrendous alcoholic, the kind that doesn't go to meetings because "all we have in common is drinking." The kind of drunk who tells you at fourteen that he could have easily gone to bed with your friend, who was sleeping over, and you shouldn't be friends with a girl like that. And, mercifully, the kind who dies in a hotel room after you've beaten the crap out of him for attacking your mother.

But more on that later.

We had a small downstairs bathroom in my childhood home. I went in one afternoon and found my mother sobbing on the toilet seat. I know that feeling too well, the instant where you want to hide your emotions to shield your child, but you just can't turn the lock on the door.

It's interesting: when she laughs, her body expands outward, but when she cries, she curls in, like she's trying to protect the deepest parts of herself.

I remember putting my small arms around her neck. I'm sure I tried to say something, but I was seven and had no concept of platitudes. I do distinctly recall the impulse to do anything to make her laugh, to pull her away from the pain, even for a second.

So, that's why I'm so funny, audiences.

Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Mama's Girl

The subject of my mother's cancer comes up often in our conversations. I have a natural instinct to throw out the line, "I'm sorry, but what about MY cancer?" or "Can we please talk about my ingrown hair? Don't tell me I don't know struggle" as soon as things get tense. It's my dark, sardonic sense of humor that has gotten me past many losses.

For instance, when we went over what will happen when she has end-stage ICC, I promised to find her the best color correctors for jaundice and the most fabulous corsetry to hide her ascites.

(Science fun fact: ascites is the accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity. Have you seen a beer gut? That's not just fat.)

If you and I have met, I've probably diffused some tension with an off-color joke. If you and I like each other, you haven't been insulted. If you have been insulted..you need a better sense of humor.

I'm home in Connecticut for the next week or two, but I feel pulled to Virginia, like I have to be there to make her laugh, or to soothe Ed's progressively chaotic nature, or to make sure that gas is in the tank or food is on the table. These are all things that can happen without me, of course, but I was born with the instinct to be both a Control Freak and a Nurturer, as well as a Harbinger of Chaos, Funny Lady, and Cluttered Mess.

Thanks, Mom.

Girrrrrl, you're welcome.