Post Number Twenty-Five

YOU GOTTA LAUGH

I write on Holy Saturday.  This is the day when the promise of the Easter resurrection emerges from the gloom of suffering and passion. It is a fitting metaphor for our spirit as Terry stands one week away from her final chemotherapy treatment.  The day has not yet arrived, but we are confident of its coming. It is the Christian life in a nutshell.

A capacity to laugh has returned to our lives.  This is the surest sign that the the grip of Terry's disease is beginning to relax its hold upon us.  This was evident yesterday as Terry and I were running errands and enjoying a time of mutual attention to mundane matters.  As we traveled between stores I asked if she had heard any of the April fool jokes that National Public Radio is so skilled at creating.  She mentioned that she had heard one in the morning that she enjoyed.  I told her of the one I heard in the afternoon as I returned from taking her mother to the doctor.  "I missed that one.  What was it about?" she asked.

I explained that NPR did a phony promo for a twenty CD boxed set of its best funding announcements over the course of the last forty years.  They claimed that they had been honored with the coveted Fundy Award for the compilation and they included several examples of funding announcements for the imaginary set.  One of the announcements was, "This NPR program is supported in part by a grant from Madoff Securities.  Let us watch over your investments so that you don't have to."

Terry sat silent in the seat beside me.  I thought she did not fully appreciate the creativity of the joke.  Then she spoke.  "That was a joke?  I thought it was real.  I couldn't understand why anyone would want to listen to funding announcements."  

I was stunned.  She tried to claim that her mental capacity was diminished by the chemotherapy.  She pleaded with me not to tell others that she was totally taken in by the ruse.  But here I am telling the story for all to read.  We laughed like we have not laughed in a long time.  Her illness shrank significantly in that moment. That laughter was an Easter moment. Tomorrow we shall remember the empty tomb and announce the risen Christ.  The door of our tomb of illness has also been thrown open. Alleluia.

Dave Gladstone

NPR April Fool Joke 2010

Comments

[Kathy Norris]

FYI - I believe in "chemo brain!"

[Carl Gladstone]

Anna believed me when I reported to her the NPR joke that I heard about Shakespeare being discovered as actually being French! It was awesome.