As a kid I remember going to funerals with my cousin, sitting in the back, dressed in the formal dark suits, watching the somber faces as people walked up to the casket to say a final goodbye to my aunt, my grandmother, a friend of the family. The passing of anyone that held importance in our families’ lives meant that my cousin and me had to sit in the back of church for a couple hours, whispering back and forth to each other, sometimes with red eyes, tears, and a good amount of crying. People would come up to us, hand on our shoulders and ask, “Everything alright?”
My cousin would quickly speak up my behalf. “Lou was very close with his aunt.” They would shake their heads sympathetically, “- Sorry for your loss. Feel better.” they would say as they put a consoling hand on my back and headed up to give their final respects. I would look up at my cousin, my eyes all red and teary…
My cousin, half chuckling, “Seriously, stop laughing! My mother keeps looking over at us!”
My cousin and I weren’t crying because we were sad. We were in stitches! Laughing at all of the stories and memories me and my cousin shared in whispers in the back pew. Laughing so hard that I was crying. Neither of us thought there was anything wrong with laughing, but we BOTH knew that our family, and society in general, would frown upon laughing at a funeral. Yet, we shared the need to move our emotions through our bodies through laughter.
This memory started me thinking that emotions aren’t inherently bad or good, helpful or harmful, appropriate or inappropriate. Instead, when all is said and done, emotions should be considered as useful or un-useful. Instead of our cultural norm deciding what emotion fits what external circumstance, maybe it is our perspective, our reality, that decides if an emotion will be useful at a particular time. No one questions that laughter and joy can be useful emotions. But, when you need to discipline a child, joy may seem less useful than slight irritation and firmness to carry out the necessary ‘sentence’ (there goes the phone for a week). I believe every emotion we have has the ability to be useful, all dependent on the context of the situation that it is expressed.
Anger or fear can be useful in a life-threatening circumstance, or simply a tool to sharpen our focus on a task in a difficult or irritating situation. Laughter or happiness can be useful to lighten a mood or to bring our spirits up to carry on and ‘play through’ after a temporary setback. Sadness or grief allows our bodies and minds to ‘let go of’ and expel (think of the deep sighs and the hard crying that feels like you are emptying your body and mind of the pain of a loss of a friend or loved one.
When our emotions help us to work through situations in our lives, regardless of whether or not they acceptable to others, they become of great value to us. It is our intentionality and our ability to consider how we want to feel – what do we want our reality to be, that enables emotions to be useful to us. My cousin and I used our laughter at funerals. We told humorous stories, stories that brought our loved ones who were no longer with us physically, into our present mindsets, front and center. To this day, I still hold many of those memories close. I have to believe that the intensity of our laughter, the emotions we shared in the back of all those churches, made our memories as rich and vivid as they are today.
