Currently, we can’t laugh about politics. The squirrels wouldn’t find this endorsement a laughing matter.

Okay, maybe we’ll let this one slide. The dog is pretty darn cute.

But suffering? That’s even more off-limits to joke about than politics. It’s not funny or cute.

We don’t advertise our “complaints” on yard signs—I vote for suffering—and we don’t blog about it, right?

Life goes on while we get to suffer in solitary confinement.

“It’s nobody’s business.” Now, that’s a statement that will make you feel lousier than you already do!

It’s about time we make suffering everybody’s business. We all suffer, and if you haven’t already, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you will.

Can we just have fun with it already?

Who am I kidding?

For me, suffering got personal in 2020 when I got diagnosed with breast cancer. It was no joking matter! I was not laughing!

Not now. Not cancer. Why me? Can’t somebody else who’s braver and funnier deal with it?

If anyone told me I would laugh through cancer, I would have laughed in their face!

Wait a minute. Did I just say that?

Could cancer be funny?

Luckily, three strokes of genius from above got me laughing again and set me in good spirits on my healing journey!

Okay, maybe not to say suffering is funny or cute, and no yard signs on my property.

When we learn to laugh even through the hard times, especially when we don’t feel like it, magic can happen—we open ourselves up to that transcended place of love where we can heal.

When you’re crying so hard you laugh, chaos and fear that have turned your world upside down explode with the sunny-side-up version of life.

You can’t feel bad when you’re smiling. Seriously, try it.

Ah, to laugh out loud again! When contrasting emotions collide, the release is our laughter.

At first, it felt wrong. How could I find anything to laugh about when I was crying non-stop?

💡Remember That Comedy Writing Class

I finished Robert McKee’s comedy writing class two weeks before my cancer diagnosis–my first stroke of genius from above.

It’s not like I was ever a comedy writer, not even when I worked at Comedy Central in my twenties. I took my assistant freelance job too seriously to crack or write a joke, and I wasn’t getting paid to laugh.

Al Franken wanted me fired because I wouldn’t laugh at his jokes!

If that wasn’t a comedy, I didn’t know what was!

Actually, I didn’t.

I got the urge to take that comedy writing class thirty-something years after my days at Comedy Central to understand why my life was a comedy act when I wasn’t funny.

That class taught me what comedy is: it’s when you see the world as perfect, but people screw it all up.

And I finally got why I’m not a comedy writer, but my life is so funny!

Life was the funny guy, and I was the serious one. We played out the act that way for the first 50 years of my life. And we had fun!

Oh, yeah, and you need a taboo subject. That’s where he lost me.

In my last carefree summer days before the cancer bomb (I mean boob) dropped, I was too serious to be taboo.

Two weeks later, into my life that I had taken way too seriously, in walks the biggest screw-up in my perfect world (cancer) and a taboo subject to boot (boobs).

How would I be serious when life was so heavy? Who was going to be the funny guy when life wasn’t joking?

💡💡 Find That Sense of Humor

Stroke of genius number two came from above: Find your sense of humor. Words might help you cope, but laughter heals the soul.

But I hadn’t taken the bait yet. Even though the tables had turned and suddenly life became severe, I hadn’t adjusted to my new role as the funny guy.

Remember, no one finds suffering funny, especially not the sufferer!

Trying to assemble a team to help me fight for my life wasn’t my idea of humor.

But I couldn’t understand a word any doctor said. I was a kid in a Charlie Brown movie hearing, “Wah, wah, wah wah, wah wah.”

And Alex, who meant it when he took our vows “in sickness and health,” would translate what they had been wah-wahing about.

And I’d be in my head, like, “Why didn’t they just say that? I’m a lover, not a fighter. A hippie that doesn’t do drugs! Peace, man!”

Then I’d wake up to my primitive belief system: peace can’t solve my cancer problem, but fear can.

I’ll scare it away. Or cry so hard it will bound to back off.

One friend had such compassion that I felt worse for her than I did for myself.

We were both at a loss for words, and what I know now explains it: our soul can’t speak about how it suffers, but it can laugh.

“Have you talked to Dimitri yet?” she finally asked.

Dimitri Moraitis is our teacher at Spiritual Arts Institute. I’ve been taking metaphysics and healing classes with him for 10+ years and am now certified as an SAI associate teacher.

Indeed, I needed Dimitri and his spiritual perspective, and I needed it fast. And, as if in answer to my anguish, Dimitri called.

We must have had a normal conversation, but I remembered hanging up after an hour with him and calling my friend back.

“I talked to Dimitri.”

“And? What did he say?” she asked.

“I don’t know, we just laughed..”

Thinking of our beloved spiritual teacher, the foundation, and all the classes he’s taught us to help our souls grow, she said, a bit dumbfounded, “But didn’t he give you any spiritual advice?”

I tried to remember what he said, but my soul could only feel the love and laughter.

💡💡💡 Laugh Out Loud

Stroke of genius number three came from above: talk, blog, have fun, and Laugh Out Loud despite your suffering.

So, I shakily wrote my first post, To Catch the Cow (from the nursery rhyme “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”).

I didn’t want anyone to know I was telling them I had cancer unless they actually read it. (It’s like that silly Facebook thread that always makes the rounds—this post has no pictures. I want to see if you’ll read it to the end.)

It was my test to see if I could laugh aloud when I was still too scared to crack a joke.

The joke started from within. I appreciated that cows and breasts both produce milk. So I got cancer (caught the cow), and I was going to milk it.

Get it?

And I just so happened to have a photo of myself mouthing a cow. Well, you get the picture, right? (If not, you’ll find it if you read to the end)..

A friend read to the end, probably because of the picture, caught the spirit, and wrote, “You’re going to laugh through cancer.” It was official then–that’s what I was going to do.

Her comment and the outpouring of love and support from countless friends reminded me this wasn’t my journey to go alone.

If I could find the words to describe what I was going through, my friends would laugh and heal alongside me.

Even for the worst parts, I wasn’t alone on this journey.

And in comes my sorority sister, who could make a dentist visit an adventure. I’ve always admired her spirit so much that I try to emulate her. But nobody is Heather except Heather.

Of course, she had breast cancer, too, and she called me. And we laughed to the point that it was infectious. With a taboo subject, it wasn’t fair that we weren’t writing for Comedy Central.

But here was her bit.

She had gotten to the point where she was over the awkward breast reveal–fumbling to open her robe only when instructed to do so.

Having seen enough doctors who all wanted a look, she had gotten to the point where she just opened her robe.

“I’m at the doctor, and I whipped out my breasts. And he blushed and apologized that I could put them away. He wasn’t there for that.”

As with every Heather story, it only makes you wish you could be so embarrassed (to have that fantastic story to tell)!

Then, she told me to shout off the rooftop, “I have cancer. Now, give me a cupcake.”

Of course, that inspired a muse.

You can’t keep this under wraps when you feel this good after feeling so bad.

You want to share it! Now give me a cupcake, as Heather would say.

And as I came to say, I caught the cow, a taboo subject and a sense of humor, and I milked it!!

Ready or not, laugh out loud!

Seriously?

Did I have to mention this is cancer we’re still talking about? There’s the serious part of the disease. I still had to get a medical team. I couldn’t be a comedy act without someone being the straight guy.

The day I “interviewed” my doctor, he told me point blank that I would lose my hair in round two of chemo. But he wouldn’t give me any other side effects.

“We’ll have to wait and see what happens to you.”.

I was balling so hard I couldn’t breathe; I might have been convulsing. I went through an entire box of tissues.

We left, and Alex gave me a play-by-play of what I had missed.

The doctor said, “Most people don’t make it to round six, and if you can’t, that’s okay; we’ll stop, but like everything else, we’ll see what happens.”

I said to Alex, “I need to find another doctor. I don’t like him. He wouldn’t tell me anything; what’s this? We’ll wait and see. And he couldn’t even look me in the eyes when he told me all those horrible things he was going to do to me.”

And Alex said, “He couldn’t look at you because he had such great compassion. If you had been able to look at him, you would have seen he couldn’t look at you because he looked like he was going to cry.”

And that’s how I realized my doctor wasn’t the bad guy; he was going to do everything he could to save my life. He would pull me through the fires he was putting me through.

That’s when I solemnly swore to leave the sickness and health to my medical team and Alex since he knew what they were discussing anyway.

And I took my comedy vows.

Wait, Suffering Isn’t Funny

Sometimes, I couldn’t find the laughter, even with all the support and love I received.

This isn’t a solo act–it’s everybody’s business. Remember? Truthfully, I couldn’t.

That’s when the power of one million+ prayers lifted me up–from loved ones, strangers, SAI, and Father Rocky’s prayer list.

When prayers go viral, the answers to all those petitions feel like God’s cradling you in His loving hand.

God carried me through it all.

Suffering made me realize how close God is to me. Ironically, it helped me through the fires it was inflicting on me.

Don’t rush out to get your “Suffering for All” yard sign.

Yet, someone must be the funny guy when life becomes suddenly serious.

Suffering taught me to laugh, not at the funny things life does to me; life is perfect, after all, but at the goofy ways I react to screw it all up.

Maybe someone’s saying something that you don’t think is very funny.

Here’s one. Cancer robbed me of my hair, my breasts, my uterus, tubes, and my appendix; why not tag that one along since it’s gone, too? But cancer left me with a sense of humor.

Or, another. Funny enough, I had to get cancer to let my hair down (err, fall out).

Seriousness made my life a comedy act, but it couldn’t get me through cancer.

Suffering is heavy enough without us adding to the weight of it.

So when life threw me a cow, I learned how to milk it! I stopped being so serious, and I learned to humor my tumor and laugh out loud with my friends.

And when I couldn’t laugh, there were no words to speak anyway. Those were the times when I could only feel love and healing go viral.