THANKFUL FRIDAY
Cindy Maddera
This is what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Well…it isn’t the only thing I’ve been thinking about, but it has been taking up a lot of brain space this week for some reason. I’ve been thinking about what this pandemic would look like if Chris were here. I talked to Dr. Mary about this on Tuesday. I talked to Dr. Mary about a lot of things on Tuesday. I only see her once a month now. So the minute I sit down in her office, I just start babbling. It feels more like I do a lot of complaining and after I finish whining about something, I try to end it with something positive like “at least I still have a job.” Because that’s no joke. I complained a lot before I got to Chris and imagining an alternate reality.
The thing I miss the most at this moment is his sense of humor. Good God, I miss the way we would just laugh. He had a way of taking those dark serious parts of life and turning them into something we could laugh about. Not in an irreverent way. Okay…sometimes in an irreverent way, but we knew when to be respectful. Mostly. I have spent this week desperately curious about his take on our current events. I miss the sharp razor blades of his wit and I miss his silly antics. You know his face mask would look re-damn-diculous. I came across that picture of him in Chad’s jeep the other day. His face all dorky and hair messed up as he played the part of Rosco the Hitchhiker. Imagine that face wearing a face mask. He could make me laugh like no one else and he saw the value in the need for laughter.
The value in the need for laughter.
Life is a struggle. At times it is a grueling slog. We are living in a dumpster fire right now. I have friends who have lost jobs and have had to make some really difficult decisions. Science has been politicized in such a way that it has put peoples lives in danger. POC are still being murdered by police. STILL. It feels like we’re on a hike that went horribly wrong and have ended up trudging through a swamp up hill with only one good hiking boot. We’ve run out of water and snacks. The compass broke, it’s raining and we are being swarmed by mosquitoes. I one hundred percent guarantee you that Chris would have us in stitches with a running gag about that one boot and that broken compass. Of course this world needs more empathy, more compassion, more understanding of otherness. Of course we need those things. But we also need laughter. If Chris taught me anything, he taught me this.
To tell you the honest truth, I don’t even know if all of this would be happening if Chris were still with us. I still believe that his death altered our timeline significantly. One thing is for sure though, he would still be making us laugh.