The funny thing about grieving

Five days as a widow and I feel a bit like tenderized T-bone on the grill.

Everyone keeps checking me to see, "How are you?"

Not that it's an inappropriate question for someone who just lost their wife -- the sincere concern with each prod is undeniably genuine -- but from my single vantage point I'm beginning to feel the bruises beneath the skin where I've been poked while people check for tenderness.

If they really knew me they'd be asking me, "Have you been able to laugh much?"

Of course I have. And it feels good. It's helped me heal in places crying can't touch, which makes sense considering what I told my late wife, Jess, when I first met her in response to her question what I was looking for in a woman:

"I just want someone to laugh at my jokes."

This, appropriately, made her laugh, and I proposed in the next breath.

OK, that last part came a month later, but laughter was a major theme in our marriage, second only to our faith. Laughter sustained us through impossible times.

Right now, laughter is sustaining me through the loneliness.

I can understand why this makes people uncomfortable. They put themselves in my shoes as good people tend to do, and the initial shock of imagining how they would respond to such a crisis is a sensation they quickly reject. It's too much darkness to process.

But many didn't know my wife like I do and even fewer know me so well. It took all of about six hours after the initial shock for someone to mention how goofy and silly my wife could be at the drop of a hat.

And I laughed. And it felt good.

I don't know the Kubler-Ross Method from the Keebler Elf Method, but I'm growing fairly confident that this is the right way to grieve my wife, the right way to honor my wife in these early days. Probably the later days, too.

I can understand why mentioning this might unsettle some people. Perhaps images of a padded room and heavy sedation are popping into your head as you consider my future. We just don't associate laughter with this type of life event.

I can only simply point out there's a difference between a sick joke and good grief, and I think I'm experiencing the latter.

This note is not an apology for laughing. Nor is it an indictment of those wonderful people who have tenderly checked in on me as they share my pain. I'm grateful to have so much concern expressed by so many people. I'm definitely not suggesting this is the road to grieving for anyone else.

But right now it does seem to be the path for me and I'm hoping this word spreads as I move back into "regular life," because I want everyone to know it's OK to laugh with me.

More importantly, I don't think straight jackets come in my size so perhaps I'm saving someone from a moment of futility.