Yes, I laugh now. No, that doesn’t mean I’m over it.

For context, I’ve never been what you’d call “petite.” I stand 5’8” on a good posture day and have been at war with my scale since the Reagan administration. “Big-boned,” some have said, which I assume is polite code for “structurally sound.”

A few years after Robert died, when life was still heavy and awkward, I lived in a little duplex next to a family of college guys and their sister. One morning, I watched from my porch as a man in a ratty pickup truck sideswiped their car, sheared off the mirror, and just kept driving. Clearly, his conscience was running on bald tires.

I gave a full report, even later caught the license plate. Eventually, they got reimbursed for the damage. Grateful, the guys brought me a gift basket with beautiful things from their home country, including a gorgeous embroidered house dress. It was bright, ornate, and…a size Medium. I haven't been a size Medium since I was 12-years-old. My sister was with me when I opened it. She raised an eyebrow, then grinned. “You’re going to try it on, right?”

I should’ve known better. But no. I went full “I can do it myself” and squeezed in. The fabric was merciless. By the time I waddled down the stairs, I looked like a busted can of biscuits in a clearance-bin house dress. My sister took one look and completely lost it. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe… or maybe it was the dress cutting off my oxygen supply. Either way, there was no graceful exit. I ended up performing an at-home extraction with scissors. (And because apparently I enjoy life lessons on repeat, I got myself into the exact same scenario with a much fancier dress a number of years later. Different fabric, same ending. That story’s in another post.)

My sister and I have never needed much of an excuse to laugh, but this one was next level. The kind of laughter that leaves your stomach sore and your mascara questionable. It didn’t fix anything, but for a few minutes, the world felt lighter. Not because grief had left, but because joy managed to sneak past it.

People assume that laughter after loss means you’re “over it.” It doesn’t. It just means you’ve remembered, for a minute, what lightness feels like. Grief doesn’t vanish; it just makes room for joy to sit beside it. Sometimes they overlap so completely that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

You can miss someone fiercely and still laugh until your sides ache; you can hold sorrow in one hand and humor in the other. Neither cancels the other out. Grief doesn’t erase your ability to find something funny; it just makes that laughter hard-won.

If anything, the moments of laughter are sacred. They’re proof you’re still here, still capable of joy in a world that’s shown you loss. They’re not a betrayal. They’re a reminder that pain doesn’t get the final say.

So yes, I laugh now. Sometimes at the absurdity of life...usually at myself. Always with a thread of gratitude that laughter still shows up. That’s not being over it. That’s just being alive.