It turns out that volunteering for hospice the last three years has been great preparation for the current market. These days conducting real estate and caring for the dying seem to go hand in hand!
Here is a hospice story from the holiday season of 2006:
I went to visit Stan again yesterday. He and Joyce were sitting on their patio as usual. Stan looked good, tanned and seeming to have more strength than on previous visits. He had little to say despite Joyce’s continual nudging, or more likely because of her continual nudging. Joyce assumed the role of talking for Stan, who was an attentive listener and still had a keen mind. After fifty years of marriage Stan didn’t seem to mind the conversation she made on his behalf. He was simply tired, too tired to assert himself, and content to just listen.
On my second visit Joyce said to him, “Look who’s here to visit, Dad. It’s Mister Johnson, do you remember Mister Johnson?”
“No,” he said flatly, “he must not have made much of an impression.” Joyce flushed with embarrassment until she saw my amusement rather than offense. Stan, a self-made man and successful commercial real estate investor, had probably never minced words in his life. I wished Joyce would leave us alone without her constant monitoring, even if he thought I had all the personality of cold oatmeal.
The volunteer coordinator alerted me that she’d heard about a joke book…a dirty joke book…that Stanley supposedly loved. One day I spied it among a pile on the coffee table. Joyce drifted upstairs as I began to read the jokes. At this stage Stanley had declined markedly. He hardly ate any longer and was weak and frail with a frame little more than skin and bones. So it was utterly shocking when he erupted into huge belly laughs. After each joke he’d say, “More! Read the next one!” He laughed harder and harder, sounding more like a 300-pound drunkard than an 80-pound hospice patient! He would erupt in huge guffaws in anticipation of the punch lines of the familiar jokes. The contrast between his physical presence and his laugh was simply amazing.
His favorite joke went like this: A mouse under foot is frightening a female elephant when a passing flea bites the mouse causing it to run off. The grateful elephant thanks the flea and asks if she can do anything to repay his kindness. The flea says, “I’ve always wanted to make love to an elephant!” (belly laugh) The amused elephant agrees to the sexual favor and the ardent flea eagerly mounts the elephant. (more laughter from Stan, obviously visualizing the whole scene) Just at that moment a monkey watching from a tree above drops a coconut and bonks the elephant right on the head! (huge guffaw) The startled elephant cries “OUCH!”
And the flea responds, “Oh sorry, am I hurting you?!”
It was months after Stan died when I first recognized that my laugh had changed. Barbara and I went to a Christmas Party and met a laughter therapist who conducts local workshops on laughter yoga and laughter meditation! She had a wonderful infectious laugh with sparkling eyes and delightful laugh-lines to go with it. (www.saritosun.com) I told her about Stan and how amazing his laughter had been in the midst of his feeble condition. And then, an “aha” revelation, I realized I’d adopted Stan's laugh since his death! Barbara confirmed the realization and we all laughed heartily. Thank you Stan. What a great gift!
Can the world be changed through laughter? Nobody ever feels badly as a result of laughing! Sarito listed the benefits: laughter lowers blood pressure, releases endorphins, aids digestion and relieves stress. And, quite importantly, laughter is the universal language! When she mentioned the recent spread of laughter yoga to 52 countries worldwide she grinned and pronounced, “We have a goal of world peace!” Perhaps that sounds like a flea with a highly inflated estimation of himself, but anyone who thinks they are too small to have an impact has not been in bed with a mosquito!
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