by Joanne Wiklund
New Year is here. I want laughter. Not at someone, but with someone. Not because I got the upper hand on someone, but because they shared something with me that they have kept close to themselves. To share a very private moment over a traumatic event in my life or theirs makes instant and forever friends. When we finally get through the trauma, we can have a Yes, this really happened realization, and hopefully we can find a reason to laugh. At the timing of the whole thing. At the reason we were brought together at the same time in the same place.
I think of a visit I made to an orthopedic clinic years ago. I was in the waiting room in a wheelchair with my broken left ankle in a boot up in the air, straight out in front of me. I was talking with another woman, about my age, sitting nearby me also in a wheelchair, left ankle in the same position as my own foot. Broken? I asked. She nodded. At that point another woman came up to the two of us, on crutches, left ankle bent out behind her, foot not touching the ground. She and the woman I’d been talking to evidently knew each other. Oh, what did you do? she asked of the woman in the other wheelchair? Did you fall down?
Yes, what did YOU do?
I can’t tell you, the crutch wearer said, “I’m too embarrassed. I just tell people I fell down, like you two. She was blushing as she replied. Tell me, her friend in the other chair asked, Tell us what you did. The crutches lady struggled to land in a nearby chair. Successfully, she dropped her head to her chest. I fell off my shoes, she said. Five inch heels. After a moment of silence between all three of us, I asked, Broken?
Yep!
But then she sat straight up, looked at both of us and started to laugh out loud. How could this happen? she asked. All three of us here at the same time with our ankles broken? The left one? We all went out the door later with casts, crutches and smiles, shaking our heads and wishing the others well. We had been reminded of who is in charge!
Ecclesiastes 1. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…”
3:4 “…a time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to mourn; and a time to dance…
I hope you dance!