Grief and Kids: Healing Through Humor

My twelve year-old son, Cuyler, and I are standing in the wine aisle in the Food Lion in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It's eight o'clock Sunday morning, and he's in a bathing suit, flip flops, a tee shirt that reads: "New Jersey. Only the Strong Survive," and a New York Giants cap. Except for two bags of Entenmenn's Pop'ems powdered donuts and a pair of plastic swim goggles, there's nothing in the cart.

To our right is a young couple with a spikey haired toddler hollering "No stop! No stop!" and banging his head on the wheel of one of those big, plastic, red and yellow racecar carts moms and dads have hated since Fisher Price first rolled them off the assembly line and over some poor, sleep-deprived parents' foot. To our left is an older woman who's alternately reading the labels aloud and cursing because she can't find what she's looking for. "Dammit. Was it Monkey Bay? Frog's Leap? Little Penguin? For God sake. It was some animal I wouldn't adopt, never mind drink."

Of course I can't find what I want either and it doesn't help that Mr. Can We Please Get the Swim Goggles and Go? keeps moaning, "Come on, mom!"

I scan the shelves as fast as anybody who's driven ten hours and slept four can, grab two bottles of chardonnay, and plop them into the cart next to the Pop'ems.

"Breakfast is served, my son!" I announce.

Cuyler laughs, but invective lady shoots me a disapproving look, sniffs really loudly, and storms off toward the produce department clutching a jug of Ernest and Julio Gallo.

"Guess she's a Chablis girl," I stage whisper, figuring I'll get a giggle from the mom with the kid in the big red car. But no. She looks at me like "Some people!", tugs on her husband's tank top, and then actually says, "Some people!" as she starts pushing their cart away.

Excuse me?

"I'm just being silly," I offer, feeling awful.

"Yeah," Cuy interjects sweetly. "She's just being silly." The humorless young mom and her equally funny bone-challenged better half look relieved. Right up until the moment my handsome son leans in to theirs, winks, and whispers, "My mom's a huge kidder. There's no way she'd let me and my brother drink anything but beer before lunch."

A couple of mea culpa's and a sincere apology if you're appalled at my son's behavior. And mine.

As a way of explanation I can only say, I'm a cut-up. I come from a long line of cut-ups. And I married a cut-up. My husband was the master of the off the cuff-comment and quick comeback. For almost 22 years of marriage, all I tried to do was keep up. And since his death from cancer in April, all I've tried to do is keep it up.

Maybe it's a weird way to deal with grief, but it's our way. And I don't think we're that far off the mark. The unparalleled Erma Bombeck once said, "If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it."

And I say, if you can laugh at it, you can live through it.

"You were a little over the top back there, Mom," Cuy teases at the register.

"Me?" I reply with mock seriousness. "You're the one who made the whole 'beer with breakfast' comment to a little kid."

The cashier ringing us up cracks up. "Do you guys always have this good a time at the grocery store?" she asks. I look at Cuy and he gives me the most beautiful, heartbreaking smile.

"Not always, but we're getting better. Right, Mom?" he replies.

You bet, bud. You bet.