The Day I Got My Humor Back

Soon after Valentine’s Day, I realized something else was missing in my life: my sense of humor. My mind had always worked overtime to rapidly release comedic interjections and see the hilarity in life’s daily absurdities. “Witty and sarcastic” was how people often described me. Now these descriptions, along with my sense of humor, had vanished, completely changing both my perspective and how I was perceived. With the exception of my recent celebration bathroom incident, I had endured eight months of grieving without cracking a joke, laughing out loud, or seeing anything anymore as comedic. I feared it would never come back and that my whiteboard would never see those descriptive words again.

Then, it arrived. A small glimpse of humor via a very unlikely messenger. It showed up one day after Valentine’s Day and exactly one week after the celebration. A seemingly innocent, cheerfully pink envelope from a producer who had worked with Joe. He was heartbroken the day she left the television industry to move her family out of state, but they continued to keep in touch through cards and email correspondence throughout the years. Looking at her name on the outside of the envelope, I immediately thought “condolence card” and a possible apology for not being able to attend Joe’s Celebration of Life. If only. It was their yearly family Valentine’s Day card—complete with a photo of three beautiful kids laughing on the front and the following note handwritten inside:

“Hope you guys are doing great! I wish I could have come to Joe’s party. I’m sure it was fabulous! It would have been fun to have been back with Joe at Paramount!”

This was not what I was expecting.

Oh, dear. How could this happen? How does she not know?

It stirred the recent memory of being blindsided a few months after Joe’s death. Hearing my name while walking through a parking lot, I turned to find a friend I hadn’t seen for years. Her smiling face confronting mine: one that painted a much different story. She could tell immediately there was something seriously wrong. Through instantaneous sobbing and slobbering saying the words, I told her Joe had died of pancreatic cancer. I watched, as a gradual shape-shifting of her once grinning face turned to disbelief and despair followed by an outpouring of tears and condolences. Slow-motion sorrow I would once again have to witness. She was not alone. Numerous emails and calls flowed in for months after Joe’s death from people who didn’t know or hadn’t been told. The correspondence seemed never-ending. I tried my best to respond but eventually decided to pass the baton on these for someone else to carry. The emotional shock and outpouring that came from the unsuspecting recipient on the other end was too much to bear. I no longer wanted to be the messenger of this horrible news.

Eight months after Joe died—when the cards, calls, and emails finally slowed down—this Valentine lands in my mailbox. Her name rang a bell, as there were a few questionable recipients sent invitations to the memorial service that I was not one hundred percent sure had heard the news. Three names, to be exact, that left me wondering if I should have my villagers call in advance of sending. With the rush of getting the invitations out on time and the number of calls I had already asked of them to make on my behalf, I reluctantly decided to just let it be. I’d rather they not find out this way but did not have the wherewithal to figure it out. Two of them already knew. She obviously did not.

It was time to figure out some post-celebration due diligence. I started by trying to figure out the best person to tell her the news. Should I ask Maureen to make another call? Or find a mutual friend from Paramount to do it? It would need to be handled delicately, being a double whammy for her finding out that not only did someone dear to her die but that she had also sent an overly exuberant note to a grieving widow while mistaking a celebration of life for a reunion party. She had unknowingly committed a rather serious memorial faux pas.

How could this happen?

I realized that the invitation, just like the entire event, was very nontraditional and possibly misleading. The front image featured Joe’s face inside a vintage TV set, with Lucille Ball holding a “We’ll Miss Ya Joe” sign on top, along with a slice of red velvet cake and colorful bubble-dot graphics. So, yeah, I could maybe see how the misunderstanding occurred. But the invitation so very clearly said “memorial”—albeit used sparingly—to describe the event.

Or did it?

I panicked. Did I use the word memorial on the invitation? I couldn’t remember and found myself scrambling for one of the extra invites to check my wording. Pulling a found card from its bright turquoise envelope, I saw it plain and clear: “Please join us in a special memorial event to celebrate the life of Joe LoCicero.” Nope. It was there and could only mean one thing. I was already on edge with feelings of insanity. Her innocent mistake did not help. I started to obsess and then get upset with her mistake. How could she think this was an invite for a party when “A SPECIAL MEMORIAL EVENT” was emblazoned on the front? It wasn’t a multipage document with tons of copy to scroll through—just a simple, colorful, two-sided invitation—to a Celebration of Life event. What else could that mean? I decided I would reach out to Maureen and try not to dwell on it anymore. It almost worked, until later that evening when I began obsessing over it again…

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