Laughter

"He must have been funny. Was he funny? I feel like he would laugh a lot." Several weeks ago, one of my juniors, Julia, was standing by my desk and saw the picture of Mom and Dad that I keep there, and she first asked, "Oh, Ms. Wood, is that your dad?" When I said yes, she asked the question about him being funny. She had no idea that for that brief moment, she left me a little frozen in time and frozen in thought. And then I smiled and looked at her and said, "He was. And he had the best laugh." For the next few minutes or so, she let me talk about him and let me pull up a couple videos I had saved on my phone and she let me share those with her. Another student came up to my desk while she and I watched the first video, and he leaned in to see it, too. I turned to him and said, "Oh, I'm just sharing a video of my dad, sorry." He said, "It's all good. Can I see too?" As we watched, I noticed they both looked so interested in what they were viewing, and they both laughed at the same time Dad laughed in the video, and we all looked at each other sharing in the laughter. For a short moment, I felt like I was sharing the world with them. I appreciated beyond measure that they let me.

He had the best laugh. It was this robust, full-body outburst of a giant smile. The cadence of his laughter has stayed with me since he left this earth. I can't think of any greater sound my ears' memories hold onto. Sometimes it started as a cackle or short staccato reverberation of an adult giggle. In the notes of his laughter, you could hear a little school boy conniving and giggling in this round, full tone of a singing sigh. As his laughter would die down, his last notes were always a sigh of a descending scale, lighter than the air they floated down. The room would briefly echo the sigh after the scale floated off into the silence. There was nothing like it.

His laughter made you laugh even more. It was infectious. And no laughing moment was better than one in which he was playing fun with Mom and trying to get her to laugh alongside him. Sometimes he would start a conversation with her and you could tell he was waiting for the perfect moment to drop his punchline, but he did it so effortlessly as he strung along pieces of information and elicited responses from her. It was as if he was reading from a script and knew what she would say. Their volley went back and forth until a certain twinkle was visible in his eyes, and then he would complete his masterpiece with his small chuckle that would grow into full smile. Then there was a head tilt in her direction as they made eye contact. She rolled her eyes and cut them away from him in an attempt to hide her laughter he was drawing out of her as he began his giggle at his accomplishment. Most of the time, these laughs were somehow at her expense, and she would raise her voice with a ringing aggravation of "Ben Wood!" followed by his light and innocent, "What?" then a knowing glance between them and a reach of his arm out to her to offer a reassuring pat, pat that I saw as his way of saying, "I just love you little Meemsie, you make me smile." Though he never actually said that, if you watched him long enough, you knew that's what he was thinking.

He was funny. Because I loved his laughter so much, I would try to say things that I thought he would think was funny just to hear his laughter. Times when we talked on the phone, I was giddy on the other end of the line if I was able to make him laugh. I found a great sense of pride in making Dad laugh. We had great conversations, even if they weren't all pleasant and perfect. Some conversations were rooted in problems and advice, some conversations were for making plans of our next weekend together or next trip together, some conversations were filled with worry about Mom, and some were just sharing mundane, day to day news. What I wouldn't give to just have one more mundane conversation with him. But man, what I wouldn't give to hear him laugh and watch how his laughter moves his whole body and how anyone in a room with him couldn't help but have corners of their mouth upturned as his sighing laughter unfolded.

So, yes, Julia, he was funny. And he made me laugh. And I thank you for letting me share it with you so he could make you laugh, too.