laughter...

it's one of those moments i'll never forget.
and yet, i can't for the life of me remember what it was he said.
which is probably just as well.

my dad was dying.
i was distraught and overwhelmed.

i was alone with bob, talking about it all.
sharing it.

and bob did something i don't think anyone else in the world
would do.

he cracked a completely irreverent joke that shocked me,
made my eyes go wide and my jaw drop...

and then i burst out laughing.

i don't think anyone else could have pulled that off.
but i remember laughing so hard and how good it felt.

he just has a way of doin' that sometimes.

his sense of humor can just catch me by surprise.

yesterday was a good day.
no distraught emotions.
nothing like my dad dying.

but there was some life stress inside of me.
money stuff.

i don't talk about it much anymore because seriously,
how much can you talk about it???

i had told him that earlier, and we just briefly touched
on it. but it brought some stuff up for me.

i pushed it down and we kept goin' with our day.

we were driving around looking at houses. trying to get some
ideas for a small, modest house we'd like to build.

and then there we were, driving around in some completely
over the top crazy rich subdivision looking at the houses.

it started out good enough.
while the houses were way way in your face gaudy/i've got money but no
taste/look at me....we were concentrating on the pretty grounds and the
trees and such.

and then we started to notice some empty houses.
which led to talk of foreclosures and people walkin' away from
their debts, and it started spiraling down for me.

the economy, the way society works, materialism, my own money stuff,
it all started whirling inside of me. i could feel this sadness
kinda comin' over me.

and then as if on cue, he did it.

he did one of his famous shocker lines.
he was turnin' the car around, something completely outlandish
and over the top crazy caught his eye and he did one of his lines.

the great thing about these is they catch me off guard.
they never happen when i'm in a laughing mood.
and the laughter just bursts outta me.

i started laughing and i couldn't stop.
i laughed cause what he said was funny.
i laughed cause he understood all the things i was feeling.
i laughed cause there we were in his silly little car driving
around looking at these things.
i laughed because i was so grateful for his sense of humor.
i laughed cause i loved him.

and i couldn't stop laughing.

it was THE moment of my day.

laughter.
real laughter.
it's priceless.

and when it's shared like that, with the knowledge you have
of each other being totally entangled in the jokes, i just don't
think there's anything better than that.

i've gone back to the car there in my mind several times now.
and each time i laugh out loud just thinking of it.

life.
sometimes the best thing to do is laugh.