Exit Laughing

by Victoria Zackheim

  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

  Copyright © 2012 by Victoria Zackheim. Copyright © 2012 of individual pieces by their respective authors. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief reviews, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

  Published by

  North Atlantic Books

  P.O. Box 12327

  Berkeley, California 94712

  Cover design by Brad Greene

  Exit Laughing: How Humor Takes the Sting Out of Death is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

  North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Exit laughing : how humor takes the sting out of death / edited by

  Victoria Zackheim.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “In Exit Laughing, author and editor Victoria Zackheim, along with twenty-three other contributing writers, examines the humorous side of our mortality”—Provided by publisher.

  eISBN: 978-1-58394-408-0

  1. Death—Humor. I. Zackheim, Victoria.

  PN6231.D35E95 2012

  818’.602—dc23

  2011042095

  v3.1

  In memory of GG

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  ANOTHER EXPIRATION DATE

  Malachy McCourt

  THE LAST LAUGH

  Jacquelyn Mitchard

  UP HERE

  Amy Ferris

  KITTY … MIMI

  Karen Quinn

  A COLD AWAKENING

  Dianne Rinehart

  BABY BLUES

  Jenny Rough

  CLEAVON VICTORIOUS

  Michael Tucker

  INTO THE LIGHT

  Barbara Lodge

  CARAWAY SEED CAKE

  Carrie Kabak

  DEATH AND DENIAL

  Barbara Abercrombie

  SUBURBAN ANIMATION

  Joshua Braff

  MEASURING GRIEF

  Benita Garvin

  DECCA’S POTTY

  Kathi Kamen Goldmark

  MY PET DEAD MOLE

  Zoe FitzGerald Carter

  HAVE FUN AT THE FUNERAL, GIRLS

  Sam Barry

  DEATH WITH DIGNITY

  Sherry Glaser-Love

  MY GRANDFATHER’S CHICKEN SOUP

  Aviva Layton

  SHE LAUGHED UNTIL SHE DIED

  Victoria Zackheim

  TRAGEDY PLUS TIME

  Christine Kehl O’Hagan

  I COULD DIE LAUGHING

  Leon Whiteson

  THE BELLE OF PITTSBURGH

  Barbara Graham

  BURIAL GROUND

  Richard McKenzie

  VIRGO

  Starhawk

  FLY WITH ME

  Ellen Sussman

  Acknowledgments

  About the Contributors

  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.

  —VICTORIA ZACKHEIM

  SAN FRANCISCO, 2012

  ANOTHER EXPIRATION DATE

  — Malachy McCourt —

  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.”

  I can say with certitude that the longer you live, the more people you know will die, which is like saying that when people are out of work it’s because of unemployment. And, generally speaking, it seems to be quite in order for our parents to die before us, as obviously mine did, and here’s a bit of my mother’s dying saga. (A note here: the title of my brother’s book, Angela’s Ashes, arose from her heavy smoking and the fact that she ended up being cremated.)

  As anybody knows, the whole thing begins with an assault on the body, usually when someone slaps us on the arse to get the breath going. The first one being an inhalation, and the last one being an elusive exhalation with corpse-to-be vainly trying to recapture it and funnel it back to the lungs.

  The mother born Angela Sheehan on January 1, 1908, took her first breath in Limerick, Ireland, and from her descriptions of her life, all her breaths from then on were uneasy. She smoked cigarettes from the age of thirteen. She gave birth to seven children, three of whom died in childhood from various respiratory failures, perhaps because of the constant presence of cigarette smoke in their short lives. She panted, she wheezed, and she coughed for many years because she had severe and chronic bronchitis and, finally, emphysema. Angela was a walking advertisement for the stop-smoking brigade. The day arrived when she could walk no more and had to have oxygen administered all the days of her life and, indeed, all the hours too.

  Then it was off to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, where she was hooked up to various life-sustaining devices. One of the questions asked her was, “What did your husband do?” She could not think of the phrase jack-of-all-trades, so she said he was an “all-round man.” “All-round what?” they asked. She said, “All round the bars.” Her reputation as a wit was established in the hospital, and thus she got very good treatment.

  As death approached, her moods changed and depression set in. A psychiatrist was dispatched to her bedside, and after a few perfunctory questions he informed her that, in his opinion, she was depressed. She told him that that was a coincidence, as she was of the same opinion, but wouldn’t he be depressed if he were on the verge of death, and were sick, so miserable they wouldn’t let him die? They allow abortions, but insist on keeping people alive who don’t want to live. She told the psychiatrist to go and help someone who needed to live. A Catholic priest arrived, and she waved him off, as the church had not been of much help when she was trying to raise four children alone in Catholic Ireland.

  I was having a fiftieth birthday party and, against all medical advice, she heaved herself out of the bed into a wheelchair and got herself to the party venue and distinguished herself by being the only dying person present. One of our friends at the party, Bernard Carabello, said to her, “I hope you don’t die during the party.” “Why?” said she. “Because I couldn’t stand the excitement,” Bernard replied. She reassured him that she ha
d to get back to the hospital and did not want to disappoint the nursing staff by dying off premises. She returned to the hospital and resumed her intake of pills, medication, and, most importantly, oxygen.

  As the days passed, her medical condition worsened, and she kept wondering why they would not allow her to die. They shushed her and told her not to talk like that. The situation was not helped by her bingo friends, who kept telling her that she would be out and about for Christmas and back to bingo. They all knew she was dying, but people play games when death is looming.

  I requested a meeting with the main physician to discuss how we could let her go. He hemmed and hawed about getting her to a nursing home, how it was against the ethics of medicine and against the law to assist in a person’s dying. I don’t know why I said it or what it means, but out of my mouth it came. “Don’t worry, Doctor. You see, we come from a long line of dead people.”

  The doctor looked like a man who has just been cornered by a pack of rabid dogs. He gasped something about Code Red or Code Blue or some emergency, and he fled down the hall, away from this non sequitur–spouting lunatic. Later on that day, the nursing staff did remove the intravenous needles, leaving only the oxygen to facilitate comfortable breathing.

  The family gathered about to make the final farewells, and so began the deathwatch as she sank into what is commonly called a coma. At about two in the morning, I was seated in the chair at the foot of her bed, listening to her labored breathing. At one point, she opened one eye and observed me. “What are you doing here?” said she.

  “I thought you might die this night!” said I.

  “I might and I might not,” said she, “but that is my business, so why don’t you go home to your bed?”

  Which is what I did, and at about 5 AM the telephone rang, and the voice at the other end informed me that the mother had just died. She had an innate courtesy, which would not allow her to die while someone was visiting her, and that’s why she waited till I was gone.

  Brothers Frank, Alphie, and Mike and myself met with a funeral undertaker who was festooned with things gold: gold watch, gold spectacles, gold tie clip, gold rings, gold tie pin, gold teeth, and highly polished fingernails. His golden tanned face was set in practiced commercial condolence. He sat behind a desk, elbows propped, fingertips together cathedral-style, saying things like, “You will want the redwood casket with the blue satin lining and the brass handles.” Our reply was, “No, we will not want that one, as we are cremating her, and could we possibly have a body bag for the purpose? And while we are at it, is it possible to have her collected by the sanitation department?”