The Dark Art of Laughing at Death

It was not uncommon in my childhood for Mom to sit me and my brother Dustin down in the living room to recite cannibalistic poetry.

The Yarn of the Nancy Bell (1866), written by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, is a poem I know well. On her most recent visit, Mom gave an impromptu reading to my entire family. There we were, sipping red wine around a family table, as she regaled us with a tale of two chaps stranded at sea and arguing over who would eat whom first.

If there is one thing that transports me to my adolescence, it’s catchy verse concerning mortality.

My maternal grandfather used to recite Robert Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee and The Shooting of Dan McGrew to me for my bedtime stories.

Life was simple back then — just me, gramps and those ever-spinning tales of death and comedy to lull me into a dreamy slumber.

While my mother’s side of the family loved to instill death lessons through verse and comedy my dad wasn’t so artistic in his teachings about the impermanence of life. Instead, for the past 15 years, Dad has taken a more straightforward approach — constantly reminding me he might die tomorrow.

“Well, I’m not going to be around much longer,” he’d casually say without prompting while we drank beer in his workshop after a long day of farmwork.

I’d laugh and tell him to cool his jets and we’d take another slug of our lagers.

For years now, the man has been convinced he would die young. This may have been the result of both his parents passing when they were in their 60s.

When Dad was diagnosed with colon cancer in the spring of 2022, we didn’t know if we were allowed to laugh in the face of death anymore.

Suddenly, the Grim Reaper was on our doorstep, and everything seemed a little too real.

Dad, although always appreciative of a good joke, isn’t known as the joker of the family. Usually, he takes himself more seriously than that. Thus creating our dilemma of how to emotionally cope with this newfound grief we were facing.

When Dad’s father, Grandpa Gary, passed away in 2009, I was laughing so hard at his funeral that I nearly peed my pants. I was also heavy with child at the time, and the baby was pressing on my bladder, so that could have contributed to my plight. However, the fact was his funeral was rife with hilarity.

Everyone was getting up to tell funny jokes and stories about the man of the hour.

My grandpa was the opposite of my dad. Always having a quick punchline up his sleeve or willing to sacrifice himself as the butt of a joke.

I distinctly remember one eventful family dinner when my Aunty Deb (his daughter) was poking fun at him, saying his titties were getting so big he was going to need to start wearing a bra. Then, Mom, wanting to get in on the action, said they should do the pencil test.

That’s where, if you can hold a pencil under your boob-meat, you’re ready for your first brassiere.

My grandfather was indeed ready to get sized.

As I drove home from my grandfather's funeral, I was sad. I silently asked God or the universe or whoever was in charge of such matters to give me a sign that Grandpa was still out there, looking out for his kin, the Sawyers.

It was odd how it happened. The radio seemed to switch stations without prompting, or maybe I didn’t notice the DJ had stopped talking, but seemingly out of nowhere, the AC/DC song, Highway to Hell, came blaring through the speakers right at the line, “I’m on the highway to hell.”

That’s when I knew there must be an afterlife, and thank the good lord, its makers appreciated dark humour.

Unlike Grandpa, my dad didn’t seem to be able to laugh at himself until he was staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun called cancer.

Then he turned into a comedian.

“Just so you know, you’re not getting an inheritance. I’ve decided to live it up while I still can live,” he said at one point to my brother and me after his terminal diagnosis.

Occasionally, he’d even turn his new comedy act inward and joke about his own mortality. That’s when we knew we were once again given the permission to laugh in the grim face of death.

A few years back, I wrote an essay claiming that I only had children to harvest their kidneys. That’s pretty much as dark as you can get, and you’d be right to assume that I got a fair bit of backlash from friends and family over that one.

Of course, I didn’t just have kids to harvest their fresh and healthy organs. I’ve also taught them the importance of being able to take a joke. As a result, I’ve got my pick four healthy kidneys ready and waiting should my shitty renal system fail. Plus, I get to live with these hilarious humans I’ve trained to make me laugh.

It’s a win-win situation!

It’s amazing how angry people get when I joke about harvesting my children’s kidneys. I read that essay to my supposed living donors, and they thought it was funny as hell, so why can’t everyone else?

I guess it’s because, much like my inclination for stand-up comedy and gruesome poetry, I have taught my kids that the best kind of humour is dark.

And now I get the pleasure of living with little misanthropic jesters who fill my heart with dread and glee in equal measure.

Recently, while playing Cards Against Humanity, one of the cards I picked up was “What does Grandpa smell like?” and as my children put in their answer cards, having just had a conversation about how Grandpa might have to get a colostomy bag due to the cancer, I shot them looks that said, you better not disappoint me.

“Teeny tiny turds,” read the winning card, and I truly was not disappointed.

Dad’s been a trooper these past few years, and I am so proud of the hard battling he’s done.

He’s been fighting the cancer valiantly, and for a while, things were looking optimistic. The tumour had shrunk, and he was back on the golf course, spending our hard-earned inheritance and laughing all the way to the bank each time he made a withdrawal.

But as we all know, cancer ebbs and flows with little to no predictability.

He’s been on a downward spiral these past few months, and it doesn’t seem he’ll make his way back up.

He was in the hospital a few weeks ago when my brother stopped by for a visit. As they sat in the hospital’s courtyard enjoying the last of the warm weather before the deep freeze of winter set in, their conversation turned to our ailing family.

Dustin: Have you heard about that terrible flu bug Mom’s come down with?

Dad: Yeah, that doesn’t sound good at all.

Dustin: And what about Linds — she’s been having all kinds of issues with those kidney stones. Sounds like she’s going to have to go in for surgery sometime in the spring.

Dad: Yeah, yeah, that’s not good either. And then there’s me, stuck in here.

Dad gestured to their surroundings. He then sat and quietly contemplated our family’s predicament for a moment.

Dad: Well, it looks like the ol’ Sawyer clan might be getting a whole lot smaller in the near future.

Dustin looked on in amazement before they both cracked up laughing at the absurd horror of Dad’s comment.

The next day, as Dust and I spoke on the phone, he hesitated to tell me about Dad’s little quip. He thought it might hurt my feelings.

Instead, I laughed with appreciation, happy to hear Dad still had his sick and twisted wit intact.

Mine and Dad’s relationship is constantly on a shifting, uneven basis. We never really know where we stand with one another because we are such different people. Polar opposite personalities.

At least, that’s what I had always thought.

As mine and my brother’s laugh attack died down, I thought about the meaning of life and, alternatively, the meaning of death and how laughter is obviously the key to both.

And finally, I realized that in some ways, my dad and I aren’t so different after all.