Then when I jumped screaming and naked onto the mat, I heard my grandmother’s famous laugh ring out in the darkness.

Once (knowing of my grandfather’s philandering ways), she disguised her voice and called him, pretending to be an admiring young lady wanting a date. Knowing that he had a philandering best chum, she suggested that she bring a blind date for his friend, too. He agreed and when the two men showed up at the meeting spot, there were their two wives, rolling around laughing, and the husbands on the lam, running for their lives. Even misery had its funny side for her. I am fortunate enough to have inherited this sense of humor from her, both the light and the dark sides, and it has pulled me through many a human misery.