When I had just started at UT my close friend/roommate’s older brother suddenly died. He was just starting his adult life, a hilarious guy and great dude. Had a gf he was likely going to marry, it was just totally gutting all around.
My friend’s parents needed to be with their surviving son and lived out of town so they drove in and our little shitty West Campus apartment became the spot where the parents, brother, girlfriend, and a few of his other close friends gathered to grieve the night that they lost him. I’ll never forget the immeasurable loss and grief I witnessed that night. I was lucky enough to not have ever personally experienced much loss up to that point and that night just imprinted on me.
Aside from the tears, hugs, and sadness that you would expect what really surprised me was the laughter. There were three or four legitimately hilarious jokes/stories his mother told that had the entire room rolling. I’m not sure how the woman even had the strength to stand, let alone allow herself to make us laugh and allow herself to laugh along.
The laughter was all mixed up with and sometimes overlapped with the crying. It certainly didn’t make the loss or the grief go away but it was part of everyone in that room’s process. I’ll never forget that sound of laughter coming from the saddest room I had ever been in my life though.