Have you ever felt a sense of grace while going through a really hard time? Have you found something to smile or chuckle about through your tears of grief?

Mom called this “a sense of holy laughter” in a recorded interview, below.

She was referencing how she and her siblings managed to laugh as they stepped cautiously through the final weeks of their father’s life in the spring of 1982.

A sense of holy laughter.

Grandpa loved a good laugh. And Grandma, God love her, the very sound of her laugh was enough to set the rest of us off into hiccup-inducing giggles. They were quite a pair.

Here’s my mom, in an interview with English teacher Mary Fleming in 1982. Mom’s father had just passed away the previous month.

Mary was a college friend and a fan of Mom’s poetry:

Sorry that the clip ends so abruptly. I’m not sure if someone taped over the rest of the interview, but classical music suddenly plays. I’m just glad we got to hear Mom read this poem:

in memoriam

what my father do you see now
better than bread
your reddest roses

how many cats lie on your lap
if there are laps in heaven
surely there are
or something sweeter than I can imagine

father
the birds you drew sing in connecticut trees now
and your bells here
ring with the sun
morning

after morning

after morning
~ joan vayo, april 28, 1982

In the recording, Mom mentions her brother bringing his children to Grandpa’s funeral in New Haven. Here’s a family photo from a few years earlier.

After this was originally posted, I spoke with my cousin Suzanne on the phone. It turns out she was at Grandma’s house that day my mom mentioned on the recording – when they traipsed from store to store looking for a dress for Grandma to wear to the funeral:

Here’s what she remembers:

Back in Indiana, in 2004, Gary moved heaven and earth to grant his mom’s long-professed wish to die at home. The moment of her passing, Gary was carrying a few boxes of expired pancake mix and rock-hard yeast packages out to the dumpster. They were not out-of-date by just months or years.

Decades.

Linda, the home-health aid who helped us all through those final days, was cleaning out the pantry.

Gary’s sister Sharon quipped: Mom couldn’t hang around any longer knowing you threw away that pancake mix she was saving from 1974.

Everyone collapsed in laughter.

Tears not yet shed would be saved for private moments later.

Gary and I still laugh about that moment of holy laughter. Rita had a wonderful sense of humor and adored her three grandsons.

“in memoriam” © 1982 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

Would you like to receive an email notice when there’s a new Too Much Brudders post? Sign up here: