Don't take your laughter to your grave.

Today I sat on a wooden church pew, in a church I don't go to, surrounded by fellow townspeople who I didn't know, as we celebrated the life of a man who I have never met.
I do know his lovely and caring wife and am blessed to count her as a friend of mine, but as I sat there and listened to others talk about a man who I had  never seen, I realized that I had missed a wonderful person.

You know what was mentioned by every single person - not that he came from a different land or that he worked hard to get his degree in a country that wasn't his home land, and then that he moved to yet another country where he took up his practice to help others, or that he married and had children who he was very proud of - or that he pushed his children to be the best that they could be - or that he loved his family very much as it grew as his children got married and added grand babies...
It wasn't that the word 'determined'  and high expectation of himself, his family and others was the name of his game.  And speaking of game, golf was his love and he taught his grandchildren to have the same love for it.

Or that the neighbourhood where he lived with his family was better for them being part of it.

It wasn't that his marriage was a true love story or that as he grew older and age started to dim his mind and he had to move into a care home,that his wife took such loving care of him every day until the end.

No, what every single person mentioned about the one thing that they will always hold in their memory of this man - the one thing no one wanted to forget -  was his laugh.

His LAUGH!

To be remembered by everyone who knows you by your laugh.  What a glorious thing to be remembered by.

Today I sat at the life celebration for a man whom I never met and I feel he made the world a better place because he laughed.  And I wish I had heard him laugh.

They say not to go to your grave with your music still in you... I say - don't go to your grave with your laugh un-laughed.
Throw back your head, slap your knee, giggle and snort but please, let your laugh be what people remember of you the most.