Joy to the World

The best thing I can do for my children is raise them in a home bursting with joy. Unabashed, no-excuses-for-laughing-obnoxiously-loud, snorting-and-squirting-milk-out-your-nose, pee-in-your-pants, jokester joy. Joy, unlike happiness that is often misconstrued as a destination, is happenstance, free, serendipitous. It prances on us unsuspectingly, melting us into giggles and grins.

Joy is a team sport.

For much of my life I thought I grew up in house that was devoid of love. I realize now that I was indeed loved, albeit shown in ways different than how Mac Daddy and I raise our children. For starters, we have marital love, which is a far cry from my house growing up. I never doubted that I was loved but I did doubt that I was adored in the same way I treat Bird and Deal. I was cared for, fed, warm, clean, educated, and given all the opportunities in the world. But no one ever tickled my funny bone. No one nurtured and caressed the orb of innocence and delight that lollygags around in all of us, especially in children. That orb shrivels if it is not stimulated. Oh no, it was not love that my home lacked. It was joy.

I have one photo of my parents laughing. I don't even know where it came from. I recognize the clothes they are wearing so I am figuring that picture is from about 1980 or so. They are looking in different directions, but it is clear that the same thing struck their funny bones. It is a beautiful candid moment that looks like the kind of picture that comes with the frame. I have never seen my dad laugh like that in person; all I have is that photo.

My home was shrouded in a veil of stress, anger, discomfort, trepidation. Those walls rarely heard laughter. We were not a family of pranksters or joke tellers. Mine was a serious house. I never learned the philosophy of work hard play hard until I went to college. We didn't play much. At least not as a family. No one played tag in the yard, built obstacle courses out of bean bag chairs and hula hoops, or trashed the kitchen decorating Christmas cookies.

We had our share of issues, as all families do. But no one was violent or drunk or enraged. We were safe. In fact, we were guarded. We lacked spontaneity, a sense of fun, and the freedom to laugh until our bellies ached and cheeks stiffened. It was not all unhappy times. But there was no joy.

The best thing I can do for, and with, my sons is chisel my face with laughlines so that they know joy and can pass it on to their own children one day. Memories of joy is what will bring them home.