It Really Is Okay To Laugh

“So…are you a part of the Blue Man Group?” Ella was asked over and over again last night.

“Nope,” she chirped back, “I’m the Handicapped Parking symbol guy.”

A few laughed and complimented her, but most of the time she was met with an uncomfortable confusion. Not because they didn’t get it, but because they were unsure of whether or not it was offensive to laugh.

We’ve made it a taboo in this country to laugh at the differences of others, and that’s a good thing, unless it stops us from laughing with them. I have a lot of family, friends, and acquaintances with disabilities of every kind, and let me just tell you….they’re funny. Their lives are often bordering on comedic genius, and they know it.

It’s often a dark and slightly warped sense of humor, but it’s not all that different from the dark gallows humor of the Irish. We have Irish family and friends…they roar with laughter in the face of death, and the world usually shakes its collective head and laughs along with them. But hear a paraplegic crack jokes about life with catheters or an amputee cut up about his prosthetic, and the crickets chirp because disability isn’t funny.

But it is. It really is.

So I’m here to say please laugh. It’s okay to laugh. Their lives are no less humorous than yours, and their stories are wild. And next year, when my daughter dons gang clothes and goes as a Crip (the plan so far), it’s okay to snort with laughter because it really is funny.

It’s about time that we got beyond simply protecting the dignity of those who are differently abled, and starting enjoying their humanity. That includes laughing with them at the taboo stuff. And that really is okay.