I’m not funny. What I am is brave. -Lucille Ball
Lucy meant that her comedic talents didn’t come from a place of being funny per se, but from a place of being vulnerable and facing the possibility of rejection.
But, it has always meant something a bit different to me.
Allow me to explain.
When I was a child, my dad died. He went to work one day and he didn’t come home.
He was 47; I was 5.
Nothing at all funny about that. I don’t talk about his death much for one main reason. It makes most people uncomfortable.
Particularly a tragedy like that.
You try telling someone that your dad died because more than 4000 volts of electricity from the 950B strip mining shovel he was working on arced to the welding rods in his back pocket. Or, that his friends and co-workers tried to resuscitate him. Or, that the ambulance got lost on the unmapped, man-made roads for the mine on the way to get him. Or, that it wouldn’t have made a difference even if they had gotten directly to him. Or, that you remember every detail of your mom sitting you down and telling you that something had happened to daddy and he wasn’t coming home again. Or, any of the other details burned into your five-year-old brain from that day or the days following. His funeral. Sitting with your cousin outside the closed funeral home doors with your babysitter because neither of you were allowed to see him because bodies that sustain that type of trauma don’t look like they normally would and your mom didn’t want you to remember him that way. Watching your grandma walk out of the funeral service, through the closed doors crying like you’d never seen anyone else cry before or since. The graveside service, sitting in the limo with your mom and uncle. The funeral director plucking a rose from the bouquet on his casket and bringing it back to give to you. A rose you still have pressed in a book somewhere. The family and friends at your house after the services. Your cat - his cat, Figaro - getting spooked and bolting out the door, only to return later when things had calmed down.
Try carrying that story and those memories around with you when your age hasn’t even come close to hitting double digits. Imagine explaining that to people who have no idea how to respond.
Simply put. Most people don’t have the first idea how to handle that kind of information.
I get it. More than you realize.
From the time my dad died, my mom explained to me what happened to him.
Exactly.
She sugarcoated nothing. She is nothing if not a realist. That’s ok with me and always has been. I’m a realist, too, and I sugarcoat nothing. Just ask my kids.
But, she waited until I was much older - only a few years ago - to give me the paperwork from the investigation into his death. I’m glad she waited. I wasn’t ready to see any of that until I became an adult. The interesting thing was that she gave it to me at a time when my personal life was falling down around me although she didn't know that at the time.
So, I waited, too.
I waited to read all the details of what had happened to him. One day when I was feeling particularly low and didn’t think that Life could get much worse, I finally did take the paperwork down from the box on the top shelf of my closet and sat on the floor with my back pressed against my closet door so I wouldn’t be disturbed and I read everything. I read the report by the mine’s safety inspector who would years later become my stepdad. I read letters from attorneys. I read sympathy cards from friends and relatives and people I didn’t know. I read the statements from eye witnesses - my dad’s coworkers and friends. I read the autopsy report.
And, I cried. I cried a lot. Not for me or for him, but for the men who had been there and witnessed it. For the men who tried to help but couldn’t. For the men who lined Graham Hospital’s waiting room hoping that by some miracle he had survived. For the men who must have suffered all these years with the memory of that awful day. I cannot begin to fathom what that must have been like for them.
As I grew up and the story of his death became my story, I always felt a certain amount of trepidation if I ever dared to talk about what happened. From early on, I knew it upset most people, but I wanted others to know that I had a dad and I didn’t want him to be forgotten. I wanted to show that I could bravely tell his story. And, so I sometimes tried to tell the people closest to me about my dad and what had happened to him. Some were sympathetic. Others treated me like I was seeking sympathy and attention. It was that latter group that made me feel ashamed.
Ashamed that my story was different and uncomfortable and complicated. And, ashamed because I couldn’t wrap it up with a neat, little happy ending. It’s not an easy story for people to hear, and it can stop a conversation mid-sentence. But, I get it, and it’s ok. It’s hard to know how to respond. There’s no rule book for how to handle tragedy. Especially tragedy that isn’t your own.
Tragedy is a strange catalyst though. Over the years, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and my theory is this. Tragedy can do one of two things: it can harden you or it can open your eyes to the world.
And, that’s the funny part.
Some of the funniest people I know have dealt with some of the biggest tragedies. Divorce. Losing a job. Losing a parent. Losing a child. Financial ruin. Dealing with a loved one’s addiction. Terminal illness. Suicide. And, every other life-changing tragedy in between.
But, tragedy, in a way, is a gift. It teaches you empathy. It teaches you compassion. And, in the best of cases, it teaches you to see the humor in things because when you’ve seen the absolute worst of Life, I think you begin to understand that the worst of times must pass.
Go to therapy and sit in the pain. Work through it. By all means, do not ignore the tragedy. Don’t try to mask your pain with a smile when you feel anything but cheerful or a substance to numb yourself to fill the void. But, when it comes right down to it, you don’t have to take up permanent residence in the pain.
Tragedy can teach you to see the silver lining. It can teach you that during life’s biggest storms the clouds will eventually part and the sun will shine again. It can teach you to persevere. It can teach you to be resilient. And, it can teach you to look for that tiny sparkle of hope, no matter how small, even when the world is falling down around you. It can teach you that if you cannot find the light then be the damned light. Spread happiness everywhere because it is a whole lot more fun to bring a smile to someone’s face than to make them uncomfortable.
After my dad died, it was just my mom and I and a big gaping hole where his presence used to be. My mom has been asked before how she dealt with the devastation of it all. Her answer was and still is perfect. She has said that she pulled herself up by her bootstraps and she carried on because she had five-year-old me depending on her.
I guess I was her ray of light. Her hope. Her choice. Simple as that. You take a deep breath and you keep putting one foot in front of the other and looking for the glimmer along the way.
Many years later when I faced a personal tragedy as an adult, I finally understood what she meant. I did not behave as gracefully as she did, but I eventually took a deep breath and carried on because I have three humans whose spark lit my way. They were and continue to be my hope. My purpose. My choice to fight on.
The people I know who have been touched by the biggest tragedies know to do that. They know to keep on keeping on. They do it with grace and beauty. They bring joy and light in the darkness.
They are brave. And, they are funny.
It may not have been what Lucy meant, but that’s what it will always mean to me.
