Team Awesome

I'm not a very serious person. I can often be found/caught making a joke at the most inappropriate times. I know that I use humour and wit to cope with emotionally uncomfortable situations and I'm okay with that.

Although we've been dealing with some big stuff over the past couple of weeks we have spent a lot of time laughing and teasing and just being 'us'. Tears have their time and place, and we have shed a few recently, but for me, laughter trumps tears. Even at the most serious times we have laughed. It helps. The laughter has kept our worst fears at bay; it allows us to vent, be ridiculous and find comfort in each other. The laughter has brought us together.

There have been many jokes and crazy moments lately but nothing tops the night we returned to my parents house, a couple of days after the quadding accident. It was the first time I had seen my dad since leaving him and my mom in the emergency room, waiting for transport to the hospital in the city. He was in rough shape that night and truthfully I was a little nervous about what condition he would be in when we saw him again.

Thankfully he was back to himself, except for the neck brace, sling and multiple scrapes and bruises. We spent the evening talking about the accident and everything that surrounded it. We also spent a lot of time joking with each other. We teased that, in retrospect, perhaps putting the two most accident prone people we know (my Dad and Mischief) on a quad together was not the best idea. I ribbed my Dad that he couldn't just let me have my moment of pity with my sprained wrist, he had to upstage me with a backboard and neck brace and he teased me that the accident was all my fault because if I had never got married and had kids there would be no grandchildren to take quadding.

After a couple of hours, Dad started to nod off in his recliner so we called it a night. He was planning on spending the night in his recliner because it was the most comfortable place for him to sleep so Mom just hunkered down on the couch, in case he needed anything in the night. Mr. Awesome and I agreed that Mom should stay close by because the last thing we needed was for Dad to stumble around in the dark and fall down. They laughed and wished us good night.

Twenty minutes later I was laying in bed reading when Mr. Awesome came into the room, ready for bed. I glanced up at him and broke out in hysterics. I laughed until I cried, until I couldn't breath, until I wet the bed ... nearly. He was covered from the head to navel with glitter; he looked like a vampire from Twilight!

Turns out he had taken a shower and then grabbed a moisturizer from the basket in the bathroom to use. It wasn't until he had slathered it all over his head and torso that he realised he was using Crafty's Glitter Girl lotion. He thought he could slip into bed without me noticing and he'd just rinse off again in the morning before anyone saw. No such luck!

I laughed so hard and so loud that I thought for sure the kids were going to wake up. Once I calmed down I somehow talked Mr. Awesome into going back to the kitchen to get me some water. He snuck upstairs in the dark and was just about to open the fridge when I came up behind him and flicked on the lights. My plan was to reveal Glitter Awesome to my parents so they could have a good laugh to but we were the ones in for a bit of a shock.

When I looked into the family room I saw my Dad lying on the floor, sling side up. It seems my Dad wanted to sit with my Mom for a while so he decided to crawl on his knees across the family room, figuring this would be the least dangerous mode of travel. What he didn't count on was the charlie horse that would launch him, face down into the carpet.

Mr. Awesome went over to my Dad and tried to help him up but it was still kind of dark in that part of the room and he was having a difficult time so I flicked on the lights. Shazam! Glitter Awesome! My Mom was stunned, she could not figure out was Mr. Awesome was sparkling like a disco ball. I started to laugh all over again and my Dad looked up for the first time and burst out laughing. So there we were, my Dad rolling from side to side on the floor laughing, my Mom and I sitting on the couch laughing to tears and Mr. Awesome, still trying to help my Dad up while mumbling something about the label on the bottle saying moisturizer.

It took us fifteen minutes to calm down enough to get my Dad up off the floor and settled in for the night again. When we finally got back into bed that night, the wait of the circumstances was still there, but I was not carrying it alone. The laughter reminded me that I am not alone in the dark times anymore than I am in the light. Hope rides in laughter and brings with it true joy, healing and comfort. God is in the laughter, too.

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
~Bob Newhart