Find The Funny.

A Personal Lesson.

Humour is essential to surviving the sad and difficult times in life and he understood that implicitly. Maybe it was surviving the Blitz in Coventry as a child, and surviving childhood TB, that formed his sense of humour? He enjoyed finding the humour in people’s everyday actions. He often poked fun at himself and acted the clown to make us smile: a master at self-deprecation.

I’m grateful for the laughter he added to my life. He taught me to look for the funny and to share it with others. Playing the fool and bringing a smile to the face of others is a gift. I saw him use it until the end of his life despite struggling with Alzheimers and not being able to talk with others anymore. He’d put his cap on at a jaunty angle to elicit a grin. He’d sneak up behind his young granddaughter and quack, getting that unexpected laugh. These are memories that continue to bring smiles years later.

Humour Can Save Your Life

“It’s not about what you’ve gone through. It’s how you choose to laugh about it,” says Goran Asaad, a Kurdish war refugee and TED Talk presenter. Life will be hard and tragic and horrible sometimes but finding the humour in the very darkest times helps. 

Laugh through the hard stuff

Making a big change in life such as retiring from a job I loved and put all my energy into for 30+ years, is a challenge. It’s not fun every day. Add to that the sad and horrible things that have happened and continue to happen in my life, and the lives of those I care for, negativity would be expected. But I know that I can choose to find humour in the difficult times. That, helps me a lot. So, I’m off to watch an old Monty Python episode or two and to laugh at the absurdity of life.  Thanks Dad.