The humour in grief

We are a family that deals with grief through humour.

The first death in my family I remember was that of my grandmother. After the initial days of mourning, all of us uncles, aunts and cousins gathered at our ancestral home. She had four sons. I thought it might be a sad gathering. But all her sons started ribbing their mother. She was quite a serious woman. Her sons started talking about how whenever she got angry my grandfather would hide behind the newspaper till she cooled down, or about how when they gathered for the nightly family prayer all her sons would start dozing off, and she would have to finally say the Lord’s prayer. I was quite taken aback. But then I realised that is how they handled their grief.

The second death was of my uncle. Again after the initial days of mourning we gathered. The brothers started recounting jokes told by their deceased brother. He had a sharp wit. His brothers talked about the time when his elder brother got married, he placed a plastic snake in their bedroom which scared the wits off his new sister-in-law. By now I had caught on to what they were doing.

So when my mother died two weeks back I was prepared to deal with the grief. Again after the initial days of mourning we lapsed into the tradition of humour in the time of grief. Somebody had to break the ice, which my uncle did by saying that Congress has lost a vote in the Karnataka election, for my mother was a staunch Congress supporter. We all burst out laughing.

My mother was a window shopper and would often drag my father off to Commercial Street in Bengaluru for exhibitions and sales. Strangely, a week after her death my father got a message on his phone that there was an exhibition at Safina Plaza, a shopping complex on Commercial Street which my mother used to frequent. This time I cracked the joke about how my mother might have asked a day off from God in heaven to attend the exhibition.

I think the best way to deal with grief is indeed through humour. I am sure my grandmother, uncle and mother are chuckling up there.

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