Whoever said “Tragedy plus time equals comedy” seriously miscalculated for those of us who have lost a child. We’re a perennially tough crowd, and it takes a lot to get a smile out of us, which, more often than not, is fake.

It’s hard to laugh when you’re miserable, but sometimes after a rough patch, when we’re exhausted and all cried out, we’re desperate for relief, comic or otherwise. I can’t think of a group of people who need to laugh more than we do! Humor is a way we deal with the pain of life, and what’s more painful than death?

Yet we tend to deny ourselves this respite from our daily dread, particularly in the early, unfunniest days, when we wake up with what I like to call “mourning breath.” Even if you think something is funny (like that silly pun), it feels almost sacrilegious to laugh when you’re feeling as torn up as we feel. We don’t allow ourselves to lose our s*** because we’ve already lost so much.

We

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