Exit Laughing

Also by Victoria Zackheim

Fiction

The Bone Weaver

Anthologies

The Other Woman: Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk
Openly about Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal
For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth about Their Bodies
,
Growing Older, and Acceptance
The Face in the Mirror: Writers Reflect on Their Dreams
of Youth and the Reality of Age
He Said What? Women Write about Moments
When Everything Changed

Theater

A Deadly Competition
The Other Woman

Documentary Films

Where Birds Never Sang: The Story of Ravensbrück
and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps
Tracing Thalidomide: The Frances Kelsey Story

Feature Films

Maidstone

Introduction

There’s nothing funny about dying. Or is there?

My mother, who had been fiercely independent and active for the first eighty-seven years of her life, fell ill in 2009 and became fragile. There were months at a time when I was with her from early morning until her bedtime, and spent considerable time urging her to eat, take her meds, and go for a little walk. When I pushed, she accused me of acting more like a nursing supervisor than an attentive daughter. I recall her being annoyed by something I’d done (or said, thought, worn, eaten, who remembers?) and I gave her one of
those
looks. She told me, “You’ll miss me when I’m dead,” and I replied, “Die first, and then I’ll know.” Despite our complicated relationship—or perhaps because of it—we laughed and moved on to another subject, relieved not to have fallen into one of those deep conversations that neither of us wanted to have.

When we realized that she was dying, we fell back into that shared humor because we discovered that it opened doors to subjects we had wanted to discuss, but had never found the right moment. Humor, we learned, creates those moments.

Studies have long shown that people who laugh have a more positive outlook on life. But what about people who know that they are dying? Do they manage their pain, prolong their lives, or make the quality of their lives better through humor? And those friends and family members close to someone who is dying—how do they relate when death is near?

As I spent more time with my mother, something changed in the way we communicated. I’m convinced that it wasn’t because of her memory loss or difficulty focusing, rather an awareness that her life would never return to normal. Had I thought about it, I might have foreseen this change, but I was focused on meeting deadlines, as well as seeing to her next dosage of medicine, or making sure she was clean, fed, dignified, and wearing her dentures so visitors would not face a toothless woman. While our conversations continued regarding her state of health—with most of my questions and comments eliciting the expected, “Oh, Vicki, please stop!”—they often segued into moments of unbridled laughter.

I’ve always known how important humor was to my mother—and yes, we shared a love of rather dark humor—but her life was coming to an end … how funny could that be?

I often wonder what it is about death that our society cannot confront. Is it the finality? The unknown? And with all this confusion and avoidance we wrap around dying, is it so surprising that we are sometimes forced to use humor to ease us through? We are a people ill at ease with not only the discussion but the entire process of dying, death, and grieving. In those long visits with my mother, I learned that there are emotions other than terror, sadness, and regret that serve to accompany us on this journey. One can share the pleasure of a life well lived, the joy of having taken journeys to faraway places, the bliss of holding a great-grandchild—all that we have achieved, rather than what we will miss.

I’ve never felt inept when it comes to talking about death.
A dear friend in Holland shared with me just weeks before dying that I was her only friend willing and available to discuss her death. She was desperate to talk about it—an unmarried woman leaving behind a young daughter—but her friends and family insisted that she would rally, that the widely metastasized cancer would magically disappear. She needed a receptive ear so she could talk through her concerns and sort out her daughter’s future. Our friendship was one of my greatest gifts, and it meant so much to me, even long after her death, that I could give this to her.

It was with trepidation and some discomfort that my mother and I began to explore many of the issues related to the realities of her death. How limited was her time? (More limited than I believed.) What happens after death? (As an atheist, that answer was no challenge to her.) Was there time to resolve conflicts she had created with some of her grandchildren? What had her life meant to her family, to her friends, and to her, and what would it mean after she was gone?

Within weeks of my mother’s death, I began to explore even further how so many of us use humor to ease pain and the important role humor can play in helping us confront the one issue that seems to trouble so many of us and elude our ability to understand it: that is, how to talk about and accept the death of someone we love. In the time since my mother’s death, I have found myself going back again and again to those moments of closeness, of humor, and finding solace as I replay the conversations—and the laughs—we shared.

Some believe that death marks the beginning of another life, while others hold that death is the end, with nothing
awaiting us. Whatever our beliefs, we hope that in some way they comfort us as we approach death and that we can accept the end without fear. For me, acceptance of death comes from a continuum that begins with living a life well lived. I hope that the end stages of my life are lived without fear and with plenty of humor.

I’m not saying that humor is the elixir to soothe our pain—but I do believe it can open a door to emotions shared, and perhaps through this sharing we can not only process the reality of death but mend the complex and often difficult relationships we share with the person who is dying. Humor is also a way that we mock death, ward it off in the hope (conscious or not) that it will pass over our houses and leave us be.

From those months spent with my dying mother and from my own thoughts and musings that followed come this collection of personal essays written by some of our country’s most prominent authors, twenty-four men and women sharing their experiences around humor and death. From four leading citizens trapped in a mental hospital after a friend’s wake (with all identification locked safely in the car, how could they convince security to release them?), to a husband commiserating over the death of a grandmother (when it was actually the cat who died); from siblings standing at their father’s casket attempting to suppress relief that this brutal man was finally dead, to the hearse driver who gets lost and leads a caravan of mourners into neighborhoods of unsuspecting families, the stories are poignant, very personal, sometimes hilarious, and always factual. Each one reminds us in some way that, despite living in a society obsessed with
communication, death is so often presented as something not to be discussed. (As Malachy McCourt points out in “Another Expiration Date,” we have more euphemisms for
dead
than perhaps any society on earth.)

Whether you are reading playful banter or exploring the pain of loss,
Exit Laughing
provides insights into each author’s warm, often biting, and always compelling wit. As we explore the subject of humor, you will recognize how often it becomes not only a release from tension and pain but a way of coming to terms with death itself.

Perhaps this book will offer comfort and peace in the face of one of life’s most difficult times, helpful for those experiencing the grieving process. Even more important, it is my wish that this book, laughs and all, opens the window into our hearts.

—V
ICTORIA
Z
ACKHEIM
      S
AN
F
RANCISCO,
2012

One of the reasons I left Ireland was that, whilst death is not always fatal there, people do die, unlike in the USA, where there seem to be some other arrangements for dying. Here is a partial list of what happens to people in a country where uncontrolled euphemisms trample news of death to death: she is deceased, gone now, laid to rest, at peace, now in heaven; he became an angel, joined the heavenly choir, found tranquility, entered the Garden of Eden, left us suddenly; she has joined her husband in eternal life, went home to be with the Lord, is in a better place; he breathed his last, is beneath the sod, is in his final sleep, has gone to his eternal reward, is wandering the Elysian Fields, said his last goodbye, entered the great void, laid down his knife and fork, took his last curtain call, entered the pearly gates, met his demise; she reached her final destination, encountered the Grim Reaper, departed this life, expired, is in God’s arms; we suffered bereavement, we said goodbye to Grandpa; he made his final exit, stepped off to eternity, is no longer with us, met his end, left this life for another; she is history, pushing up the daisies; he is planted, bit the dust, kicked the bucket, bought the farm, succumbed, crossed the River Styx, bought a pine condo, sprouted wings,
danced his last dance, shuffled off this mortal coil, cashed in his chips, is no longer with us; and the most common of all: he passed. The question being, What? And who is going to clean up? And death is forbidden in public places; as the signs on various highways proclaim, “No Passing.”