My mom may have had Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and a heart condition, but she could still say and do the craziest things.
It’s okay to laugh. We have to. If we don’t, we’ll just dissolve into a puddle on the floor.
Why is laughter so good for you?
“The old saying that ‘laughter is the best medicine,’ definitely appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart,” says Michael Miller, M.D., F.A.C.C., director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center. “We don’t know yet why laughing protects the heart, but we know that mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining our blood vessels. This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries and ultimately to a heart attack,” says Dr. Miller who is also an associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Cool, huh?
So, what makes you laugh?
Think about the movies where you’d laughed out loud.
I just saw Tropic Thunder–and laughed until my sides hurt.
I warn you–it’s raunchy from the beginning to the end (and I’m not usually a raunchy humor kind of gal–not a big Austin Powers fan). But it’s also well-written and sharp.
Make Your Own Funny List
- Funny movies
- Funny friends
- Great jokes
- Funny songs or rhymes
- Funny or ironic moments in your own life
- Funny, sharp, witty turns of phrases
- Funny books or authors
Begin to see the “funny” in each day. Start looking for it.
The Benefits of Laughter
Dr. Lee Berk and fellow researcher Dr. Stanley Tan of Loma Linda University in California have been studying the effects of laughter on the immune system. Published studies have shown that laughing has the following benefits:
- Lowers blood pressure
- Reduces stress hormones
- Increases muscle flexion
- Boosts immune function by raising levels of infection (fighting T-cells, disease-fighting proteins called Gamma-interferon and B-cells, which produce disease-destroying antibodies)
- Triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, and produces a general sense of well-being
Wow! Too bad the pharmaceutical companies haven’t caught on. I wish they’d include a complimentary Saturday Night Live video with each of their prescriptions!
I’ve laughed my head off at an indecisive squirrel who just can’t seem to make it across the road. I’ve laughed at my dog eating peanut butter–I’ve laughed at my ability to trip walking down a flat sidewalk!
Recently, I was at a caregiver’s conference, and after my talk–-in which I do a one-act play of my mother and I having an argument about me refusing to wear a slip–-a woman in the audience whispered in my ear, “It’s probably been over a year since I laughed. I laughed today.”
There is no better gift she could have given me.
We caregivers can get too darn serious. Sure, we’ll dealing with disease and end-of-life issues–but the absurdities and incongruities of life are even more ironic, more funny when there’s so much at stake.
Mark Twain said,
|
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. |
Finding the funny in caregiving kept me alive. I had to write about all the crazy, irreverent, whoopsy-daisy moments caregiving brought into my life. Sometimes I wrote about it with biting sarcasm, other times, it’s tinged with sorrow. You can’t separate it–caring for our loved ones is bitter sweet.
I’m grateful that my mother could laugh at herself–at us. When I was a child (she was my adoptive mother and 50 years older than me), we’d watch Jack Benny together and Red Skelton. We’d laugh and laugh. I’d stack their stand up routine against today’s finest–and they’d still trump these guys (and gals!)
Remember the old Art Linkletter show? About kids saying funny things?
Here are a couple of excerpts from Mothering Mother when my mother was at her finest!
Remote
Mother can’t figure out all this “high-falutin’ machinery,” as she calls it. The phone rings,
“Hello. Hello? Hello!”
She doesn’t know she’s picked up the remote control.
“Hello!”
No one answers. She sets it on the table, thinking she’s hung up the phone, but somehow she’s knocked the real phone off the hook. It starts making that noise. I reach over and hang it up.
I look at her but don’t say a thing. I’m trying not to laugh.
“They must have hung up,” she says.
I agree.
“Yes, mother. Someone has definitely hung up.”
***
No Bacon?
I need to go to church. I need to get out this house, wear a dress and sit on a pew and sing a hymn and pray. I desperately need to know I’m not just out here on my own.
I dress and hurry to fix Mother some breakfast. I place cereal, toast, coffee and cut-up bites of cantaloupe in front of her, then hand her the little silver tray of pills, the same silver tray she always handed to Daddy, and give her some water to take her medicine with.
You can’t hurry Mother anymore. She’s worse than a preschooler meandering down the sidewalk, pausing to examine a ladybug on a blade of grass and pocketing every pebble.
“Are you sure I take this purple pill now?” Mother stares at the silver tray as if I’m trying to poison her.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Where’s the yellow one? I need to take the yellow one.” She dumps the pills from the tray into her hand.
“No, Mother, that’s with lunch. You take these with breakfast.”
“Is it breakfast time? I thought it was late afternoon.”
“Yes, honey, it’s breakfast. Swallow these pills and then you can eat.”
“Where are you going?” She looks around the room, tilts her hand, and drops the purple pill onto the floor. I find it on the carpet.
“Church, and I need to hurry.” I put the pill on her tongue.
“Is it Sunday? I need to go to church, too.” The pill drops out of her mouth.
“No, Mother, you’re not strong enough today, sweetie. Phillip is staying home with you today.” I pick it back up.
“I can get ready in a jif.”
“Mother, take these pills. I need to go.”
“Aw, you’d wait for me.” She reaches in her house robe pocket and pulls out a long strand of pearls then puts them on over her housecoat.
I rub my face to keep from chuckling at her attire or screaming at how long this is taking.
I think of what she’s really like, of the Sunday mornings of my childhood and our intricate dance of preparation. The ironing that commenced on Saturday afternoon, the cleaning out of her purse, the polishing of everyone’s shoes, the check of the nylon hose for runs, the dab of clear fingernail polish… on and on… late into the night, beginning again early on Sunday morning, culminating in southern perfection.
Now, it’s a sling of the beads over a well-worn housecoat and she’s good to go. This isn’t like her.
“No, I can’t wait for you, honey. Maybe you can go next Sunday, but you can’t make it today.” I don’t like the sound of my own voice, the hurry inside me.
“Who’s gonna stay with me?”
“Phillip. Now take these pills and sit down and eat.” Five minutes later, I’ve scooted her from the bed to the chair and put the tray in front of her. She surveys it, scanning the food as if she’s a New York food critic, flicking a cantaloupe chunk onto its side with her fingernails. I turn on the television to a preacher I know she likes and take a step back, sneaking out of the room the way I did when my girls were babies so they wouldn’t cry.
“What?” She looks around on her plate. “No bacon?”
***
I’ve heard some of the greatest stories by families and caregivers around the country.
One story I can share is about a man who works at home and takes care of his mom who has Alzheimer’s. She “goes to work” with him–sits right beside him at the computer. When the man’s wife comes home from work, the man’s mother goes ballistic. She sees his wife as “the other woman.” She hides her purse, pinches her under the table, and tells her “to leave her man alone.”
That could really mess with your head!
***
One more story–(I have a million!)
A friend of mine was placing her 91 year-old mother in a care facility (falling/memory loss). She and her sister were cleaning out her mom’s house and consolidating things. She found a rather bright pink Las Vegas type dress–kind of ballroomy with lots of sequins. They decided to donate it to Goodwill and couldn’t imagine who the dress even belonged to–surely not their mother!
A month later their mother asks her daughter’s, “Did you all see that pink dress I had in the back closet? I want to be buried in that dress.”
The two daughters looked at each other–tried not to laugh–and said of course, that would be perfect.
They spent the next 2 months trying to track down the dress. Sequins and all.
***
So come on, share your stories!
Let’s laugh to the point of tears–not laugh at each other but at life and all it throws our way.
I’ll post them on my site and they’ll go to thousands of readers. Just think…you could help someone smile today.
Carol O’Dell is the author of Mothering Mother, available at Amazon.com
Tags: grief, hope
