There are certain individuals in this world that have infectious laughter. I have an aunt who has this characteristic. You always enjoy being in the same room with her, because her laughter fills it up, inviting even the passerby to come near and be coated by it. It doesn’t take long for that stranger to be laughing too. These individuals are extraordinary in their ability to make a glum situation turn into something that is good and whole.
Laughter seems to buffer the good and the bad. Yes, it generates a good feeling, but it tempers even the most common of situations with a dose of lightheartedness, insulating it from becoming either too inane or too sensible.
My aunt lives in another state and is not someone I see regularly, but I can still recall the last time I visited her. She and I, along with several cousins, had dinner together. It was at a steakhouse. We filled the room with laughter derived from memories, jokes, even by simple gaffes like dropping a napkin.
Many years ago, I heard a program on National Public Radio about a woman who went around the country interviewing centenarians. Her interviews were centered on that ultimate philosophical question, what is the secret to old age? One women interviewed claimed that the secret to old age was laughter.
There are many things on this earth that can harm us; disease, age, war to name a few. Still, laughter seems to protect us from the battles these menaces sometimes pose. All of us laugh (I hope), but for those that laugh in that infectious way, I want to thank them for infecting others and perhaps extending lives.
I have to wonder if this kind of laughter is a type that transcends human nature; whether it’s an opportunistic infection simply out there to survive. Perhaps it’s not a human characteristic at all, but an entity fighting for its own survival inside the human species; the byproduct of which is the extension of a healthy and long life.
I’m sure my aunt is sitting at home right now. If we’re lucky she’s spreading around that laughter, and that laughter, in turn, is reaching out to coat yet another lucky soul.
Copyright © Tyler Gant 2009
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