The Things He Left Behind That Still Make Me Laugh

Some memories of Jay make me cry.

Others make me laugh before I can stop myself.

Occasionally, the same memory manages both. Grief apparently does not believe in staying in its assigned lane.

When someone dies, we spend a lot of time talking about the big things: their service, their accomplishments, their love for their family.

Those things matter. But a marriage also lives in the everyday details. The familiar expressions. The conversations nobody else would find interesting. The jokes that require ten minutes of explanation and still make absolutely no sense to anyone outside the relationship.

Some of those memories are among the things I treasure most.

The Man Behind the Memorial

Jay was a soldier, a husband, and a father. He was also a person with a personality.

That can get lost when we talk about someone who has died.

We choose a photograph, write an obituary, and try to fit an entire human being into a few respectful paragraphs. There is rarely enough room for the ordinary nonsense that made life together feel like ours.

But I remember a whole person.

Someone I shared a life with before anyone needed to write the words “in loving memory.”

That life included laughter. It deserves room in the remembering, too.

Marriage Has Its Own Language

Spend enough years with someone and you build a private collection of references.

A few words can bring back an entire conversation. A certain look can say more than a speech. Something completely ordinary can remind you of a moment you had almost forgotten.

Then you find yourself smiling in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable day.

Anyone watching might wonder what is so funny.

Good luck explaining it. Married people can spend years developing a joke that has no measurable comedic value to the general public.

It was funny to us. That is enough.

Laughter Still Belongs Here

There can be an awkwardness around a widow laughing, especially when she is talking about her husband.

People sometimes seem unsure whether they are allowed to join in.

If I am telling you something funny, you can laugh. You do not need to suddenly look solemn halfway through, as though someone from the Department of Appropriate Mourning might be taking notes.

I want room to remember the good parts out loud.

Missing Jay and enjoying a memory of him happen together. A laugh can bring him close for a moment. It can remind me that we had a life full of things besides illness, loss, and the paperwork that followed.

Grateful for the Everyday Things

I wish we had more time.

I also appreciate the years we had and the memories that still catch me by surprise.

The ordinary moments have become precious in ways I could not have understood while we were living them. We rarely recognize a future favorite memory as it happens. We are usually busy making dinner or getting through Tuesday.

So today, I am making room for the memories that bring a smile.

Jay’s story contains love, service, hardship, and loss. It also contains laughter….lots of laughter, much of it inappropriate or dark.

And I am grateful that some of it is still finding its way into my day.