How Humor Got Me Through My Father’s Death (and my own cancer diagnosis)

My father, a retired pastor, died from liver cancer in 1999, and in the days leading up to his death, we had hospice care for him at our house. His hospice nurse had done a good job at explaining what to expect — that Dad would slowly (or quickly) lose major body functions, leading to coma and then death.

All of my 5 siblings were there towards the end, and one day, sooner than we’d hoped, Dad became unresponsive. We called his pastors, who made plans to come over to the house to do a service for those who were dying.

We gathered around his bedside, in my tiny guest bedroom with the robin’s egg blue walls and hand-me-down furniture. The pastors did their thing, with all of us sniffling and dotting our eyes.

“Now we will sing hymn #314 ‘Who is This Host Arrayed in White,” one of the pastors intoned.

We looked around the room as we opened our hymnals, silently communicating with our eyes, we don’t know this hymn. It’s possible one or more of us struggled to not nervously laugh.

We were pastor’s kids and did not know this hymn, but we bravely muddled through it. Worst hymn ever, even though the composer was Norwegian from our beloved motherland.

It would’ve been funny if it hadn’t been so mortifying. We were certain we were sending our father to a quicker grave, that he would surely prefer death than to suffer the humiliation of none of his 6 children knowing this obscure Norwegian hymn.

Blessedly, the worst hymn ever came to an end. We were all quiet, tears rolling down our faces, when suddenly…

Cough.

Our eyes whipped around to Dad’s face.

Cough. Cough.

Lips moved, body slightly stirred.

“Dad!” We clamored. “We thought you were dead!”

“Well, I will be soon enough,” he said weakly, with eyes closed.

Then:

“I told you people I wasn’t feeling well.”

There was no stopping the laughter at this point. Somewhere in my mind I heard that Monty Python character saying, “I’m not dead yet!”

I think Dad died the next day, but the afternoon when we gathered and butchered a hymn while we laughed and cried was stamped into our memories forever.

Our father had a good death. He didn’t linger or suffer very much, he had his family around him and, in true Nybro fashion, there were bursts of laughter even though we were terribly sad.

Dad was a bit of a complicated man, as many of us are, but the trait that uncomplicated things was his sense of humor. He was corny and slapstick, and often got the punchline to a joke all wrong. And then he would pound you on the back, laughing at his own bad jokes.

I told you people I wasn’t feeling well.

Of all the times to get the punchline right, Dad.

That was 1999. Fast forward to 2024, when I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer after first breaking my back. When I was finally able to take a bath rather than sitting in a medical chair in the shower, I was able to get into the bathtub just fine by myself.

But getting out? I couldn’t figure out how to safely twist and get my legs under me in order to get out. I had to call my husband, who was outside doing yard work.

When he came into the bathroom, I said, “Well, this is fine fucking pickle I’ve got myself into, isn’t it?” And we both burst out laughing.

It might sound gauche to laugh so much in the face of illness and death. And you might be right, if the person dying was known for being quite serious and formal.

But laughter is often the thing that breaks the tension, reminding us to not take the situation too seriously. It releases stress and binds us together, allowing us to take an often much-needed emotional break.

In the end, we are all just a bunch of souls going through a human experience, and humor is a part of that. I’m forever grateful for being raised with a healthy (if admittedly sometimes inappropriate) sense of humor by both of my parents.

Whatever is going on in your life right now, I invite you to remember to laugh. Break out into a broad grin, giggle, snicker, or bust a gut. Laugh til you cry. Pound the arm of the chair you’re sitting in. Life — as long as we have it — is for the living.

My son Max and I at his wedding when he pranked me with a fake song for our Mother/Son dance.

{Please, please, leave a comment with a story about how humor helped you through a tough time! It’ll surely make someone reading it laugh, and we can all use a little more of that these days.}