Laughter and Tears

I recently wondered how is it possible to laugh and cry at the same time. They are such opposite emotions that both come so readily and, sometimes, so inappropriately.

Take the time Mike and I got laughing at a funeral. It wasn't particularly funny as it was an untimely death and the widow was beyond distraught. But one of the songs they chose to use was also, simultaneously, being used to advertise allergy medicine on TV. By Willie Nelson. Something about that contradiction just made the most unbearable of situations completely bearable, human, and flat funny. At least to us, in that moment.

Then you have the times when you cry at the drop of a hat. Any one of your five senses can betray you and start the flow. It's the scent of the perfume that reminds you of that lost love. The picture you hadn't seen in years that brings up the best memories and makes you miss that person as deeply as the day they died. The touch of someone's hug, telling you it will be OK, when you didn't really think it wasn't OK to begin with, but you turn into a puddle in their arms. There is a reluctance to cry in our society, but it is the healthiest way to deal with life, besides laughing, I think.

We really are so very, very human. Our emotions betray and portray the lives we are leading at that moment, in that time, for those few seconds.

And to try to defy what we are feeling is pointless. My advice? Just go with it. Tears turn to laughter and laughter turns to tears. It is, after all, what separates us from the monkey and makes us the people God created us to be.