Written as a blog entry for our Anchored To Hope community building exercise in 2021.
Some people in your life act like instigators. They’re forever making you laugh because they say or do things that most of us think, but rarely admit. They find humor in the darkness and silliness in the crazy.
I love these people. I have to. I am one.
My first favorite instigator was my grandfather. He was what I imagine the famous humorist Mark Twain would be in real life. Deadly honest. Smart but pretended to be dumb farm kid. Raw, but classy enough and smart enough not to cross certain lines. He didn’t need to. You always knew what he meant.
He found something funny in the everyday and stories abound in my family of “Did he really say that?”
Please don’t misunderstand. He was never unkind. Just borderline outrageous. Even at his funeral, my family found ourselves laughing at the memory of what he would have said during the eulogy.
He reminded us of all our humanity, to keep our egos in check and to never fail to laugh at our own stupidity. These are life lessons I try to remember every day.
And they make me smile.
