I believe that laughter is the best medicine, and that old saying about the apple should be changed to “a laugh a day keeps the doctor away.” When I am feeling depressed or sad about something, most of the time the thing that makes me feel better is a good laugh, not an Advil. For some people, it seems they just have a natural talent for being funny. My family just happens to be full of natural born comedians.

A couple years ago, my Grandma passed away and we flew to Minnesota for her funeral. Normally, her house would always be filled with noise and laughter, because there isn’t a single person in our family who doesn’t have a loud mouth. The little ones would be laughing and screaming, my aunts would be yelling back and forth, my dad would be talking politics with Grandpa, and my cousins Nick and Steve would have the rest of us “living” on the floor laughing.

This time was different. There was no laughing or shouting, and definitely no playing. It was hard to see a family that is always so loud become almost silent. The night after the viewing, just about everyone had left my Grandpa’s house, but then the doorbell rang and to my surprise it was my cousin Shelly and her husband Ben. I thought she came by to drop off flowers or a card, but this was better; she had bought me a gift. Since the present was from Shelly, I wasn’t shocked to find out that it was a pair of squirrel underwear. It came with an authentic seal and a note explaining why they were created. My sister Melinda, Shelly, Ben, and I probably sat at the kitchen table for hours cracking jokes about this tiny little pair of squirrel underwear.

“I wonder what they’ll look like on the clothes line!” “We should switch them with Uncle Mike’s!”

This would have been as funny at any time, but the fact that we just lost our Grandmother and hadn’t laughed in so long made it seem like all the life was poured back into my sister and me.

I believe laughter can heal emotional wounds because it sparks a chain reaction of happiness. All it takes is just one person to start it. Maybe the next time you see someone who seems down, you’ll take a minute to share with them a funny incident that happened last week, or a hilarious skit from Saturday Night Live.