Laugh and Celebrate!

Growing up in a family with eight kids was full of tension. In spite of this, and many other problems, we still found happiness.

My mother was not perfect (who is?), but she had one quality that I think I have inherited and another she has passed on to me.

First, the one I have inherited. Laughter. In spite of all of the fighting and yelling and screaming, we always seemed to find something to laugh about. Perhaps this is because with ten people in a house, somebody is bound to do something funny every day, but even the violent acts bring laughter now. Let me give you an example.

My sister got angry with me for not taking the name of a boy who called her on the phone. One of my brothers sided with me, saying that if he had any manners, he would have told me his name. The argument grew and grew until my sister struck my brother in the head with a kettle and he had to go to the hospital emergency room for stitches. As my sister walked out of the house, my mother said something about her attitude. In anger she put her fist through the window, cutting her wrist and she had to go to the hospital, too. Now, can you imagine my brother sitting in the emergency room and having my sister arrive suddenly? Was she back for round two? What seemed very tragic at the time soon became quite funny.

My mother didn’t seem to care if she was the one people laughed about, either. We could tease her forever and she didn’t seem to mind as long as it ended in laughter. We would do things like sit around the Scrabble board and invent silly words. She was the worst offender, but we would sometimes laugh until we cried.

Now, what I was taught. Celebrate! If I got a good mark on a test, we celebrated. If I hit a homerun, we celebrated. Whatever good happened in life was a cause for great joy.

Birthdays were not mere days on the calendar. They were opportunities to shout madly at the rising sun and bask in the glory of the day as it set. Birthdays were more than special.

While celebrating Christmas, everything was notched up several levels. With my brothers and sisters and their children arriving all day, it was like a carnival. Sometimes I would go to the basement to escape the noise, but I would soon plunge myself back into the swirling masses in our small home. With the cooking of the turkey and heat generated by humans, we usually had to open the doors in our home to cool it down.

I still love celebrating. Family get-togethers are a great joy to me. The first leaves on the trees in spring are a reason to be festive. Sitting on my front porch and hearing a loon sends shivers up my spine. Even getting something right that I have been working on makes me want to dance for joy.

Yes, laugh and celebrate. Sounds like a great combination. I think I have to start finding more reasons to laugh and celebrate.