Laughter helps.

I can recall laughing about something in the limo en route to my father’s funeral…he was very funny. He died after 8 years of having bladder cancer. I am sure he survived as long as he did because of his indomitable spirit. When he had his first cancer surgery, my mother, brothers and I were all hovering around him as he came out of the anaesthesia. He started to speak in his gravelly, post-surgical voice, “I’m so ill; I’m in such pain. I just had surgery. I had a hysterectomy!” Of course we all broke up with laughter…and he was in cotrol of the situation.

My mother-in-law just died at the age of 90 after a wonderful life. Her funeral was filled with joyous recollections from all assembled - from her great grandchildren to her contemporary cousins. One of her great attributes, and the secret of her 69-year marriage, was her sense of humor.

So was Mary Poppins. She said “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…” and isn’t laughter the best type of medicine?

And speaking of laughing, and Mary Poppins, and the pure joy of your favorite childhood memories, here is one of my favorite songs. Whenever I think of it, I start to smile, and before I know it, my smile turns to giggles, and then overflows and I can’t help bursting out with joy!

I Love To Laugh
From the movie Mary Poppins

Uncle Albert:
I love to laugh
Loud and long and clear
I love to laugh
It’s getting worse ev’ry year

The more I laugh
The more I fill with glee
And the more the glee
The more I’m a merrier me
It’s embarrassing!
The more I’m a merrier me!

Mary Poppins:
Some people laugh through their noses
Sounding something like this “Mmm…”
Some people laugh through their teeth goodness sake
Hissing and fizzing like snakes

Bert:
Some laugh too fast
Some only blast - ha!
Others, they twitter like birds
Then there’s the kind
What can’t make up their mind

Uncle Albert:
When things strike me as funny
I can’t hide it inside
And squeak - as the squeakelers do
I’ve got to let go with a ho-ho-ho…
And a ha-ha-ha…too!

All:
We love to laugh
Loud and long and clear
We love to laugh
So ev’rybody can hear
The more you laugh
The more you fill with glee
And the more the glee
The more we’re a merrier we!

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge,

That myth is more potent than history.

I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts

That hope always triumphs over experience

That laughter is the only cure for grief

And I believe that love is stronger than death.

– Robert Fulghum

(reposted from here in august 2005: http://natalieshell.com/2005/08/10/the-storytellers-creed/
and given to me even longer before via Martin

this story journey started a long time ago, and yet right now it feels like iam only JUST starting…perhaps that is how it works…always beginning and ending starting and restarting…learning more…feeling smaller and bigger all at once

this also goes with this posting somehow
Stories move in circles. They don’t move in straight lines.
So it helps if you listen in circles. There are stories insidestories
and stories between stories, and finding your way through them
is as easy and as hard as finding your way home.
And part of the finding is the getting lost.
And when you’re lost, you start to look around and to listen.

Corer Fischer, Albert Greenberg, and Naomi Newman
of A Traveling Jewish Theatre, Coming from a Great Distance
via http://www.deenametzger.com/