Turns Out, We Still Know How to Laugh

What do you get when you attend an afternoon tea with people who’ve recently lost someone they love? If you guessed sadness, and an emotional landslide of tears… you’d be wrong.

On Saturday, I went to an afternoon tea hosted by the funeral home and cemetery where Eddie is buried. At first, I had no plans to go. The idea of sitting in a room full of grieving strangers felt like too much. I could barely carry my own grief; I certainly wasn’t equipped for a group share.

One deeply grieving person per room, please!

But something nudged me to go. Maybe it was the pull to step outside of myself for a little while—or maybe it was the simple excuse to put on makeup for the first time since May. Whatever the reason, I got in the car and headed toward the funeral home. Not without stopping to see Eddie first.

Visiting Eddie is a weekly ritual. He’s resting beneath an oak tree, in a spot where birds sing in the trees and dragonflies dance around flowers. It’s peaceful there. I talk to him about what’s going on with me, and what’s happening in the world—as if he we’re sitting next to me on our couch. And before I left this time, I told him I miss him, and with a smile of disbelief and a roll of my eyes, I told him I needed to run because I had a widow’s tea party to attend.

Off to the Tea

A storm had come through the night before, knocking out the power at the funeral home. Any other day, walking into a dark, candlelit funeral home might’ve had me making a sharp U-turn. But the hallway was glowing—lined with candles flickering gently against the walls. Instead of eerie, it felt calm. Sacred, even.

The tea was not well attended. I can only assume that the others that were invited may have had the thoughts I had – Am I ready for this? But the people that were there were engaged with one another as I found a spot to join in. To my surprise it was not the grief fest I was expecting.

What I experienced was something entirely different.

We did share who our loved ones were, and when they passed. But that wasn’t the center of the conversation. Not even close. Most of what we talked about had nothing to do with loss at all. I learned…

• about a new restaurant not too far from home.
• a meteor apparently crashed through the earth’s atmosphere on Thursday—though somehow I missed both the boom and the news.
• once you turn 62, you can go back to college for free. (Tucking that away for later.)
• the funeral advisor who helped me through those first impossible days is binge-watching the same TV show I’ve been watching to escape reality.
• and a few other things that made all of us laugh and smile

For a little while, I felt… normal. Like myself. Understood in a way that didn’t require explanation. We didn’t talk about our grief. We didn’t have to. There was this gentle undercurrent that said I get it, without needing to say a word.

This new world is strange and lonely, but every now and then, something familiar slips in. A small moment that feels like before. It reminds me that life goes on, and that I still get to choose how I show up, what I reach for, and who I become in all of this.