Appropriate Humor

My life took a little unexpected turn. While visiting my mother for Thanksgiving, she developed congestive heart failure and had to be hospitalized. My blog got set aside - sort of. Humor is a huge part of my family's life and we laugh our way through hospitalizations and colonoscopies and bone marrow aspirations. It's how we cope with fear and anxiety. I think it is a good thing - as long as we aren't laughing enough to jiggle our bodies during a medical procedure. That is a good time to stay still.

Anyway, I thought about the blog, and what I want to write about is this: when my mother was admitted, the nurse was joking around. I thought she was funny and totally appropriate. She made me feel at ease. However, another family member had the exact opposite experience. He felt the nurse was out of line. He felt she crossed over a line, during this time of grave concern.

Although we had different experiences, both were valid. What came up for me is the question, when is humor not appropriate? How do we know when to make a joke and when not to? For instance, after the attack on the Twin Towers, humor virtually disappeared from the public for about a week.Then it returned and we started to heal. How did we know how long to maintain our humorless vigil? I don't know, but we did.

Enough seriousness. Someone rescue me with a joke, please, before my liver starts to cry...