Laughing Through the Tears

I am no stranger to grief or loss. The joke is that my Irish heritage makes this unavoidable in a way. True, I am intimately familiar with the workings of wakes and funerals but I think of it as more of a symptom of having a very large family than anything else.

It was recently that my family suffered the untimely loss of my uncle. This was my stepfather's younger brother. He went to sleep and never woke up. My stepfather has been in my life from my earliest memories. He was a friend of my parents during the years they were married. At first I wasn't quite sure about this hunting and fishing family. But I have come to love and treasure it. These hunters and fishermen taught me the value of the outdoors. To sit in a treestand with a bow waiting for a deer requires patience of the sort I can barely attain with yoga. I learned the utmost respect for nature and the creatures that inhabit it. If a deer or a fish was going to give up it's life, the very least we could do is to respect it and give thanks.

There was a private funeral service which brought forth the laughter through tears of the title. As we sat and shared memories, it was utterly heartbreaking and so very sad to see my grandparents mourn the loss of their son.