Evan's Story, Chapter 7, Laughter

Laughter, the Best Medicine

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine,

Proverbs 17-22

   Evan loved to laugh. He laughed easily and he laughed out loud. It was contagious.

   The family’s favorite show to watch was America’s Favorite Home Videos, but only if Evan was watching. The slapstick comedy presented on the television may have made us smile, but Evan would burst out laughing. It was impossible not to laugh with him.

   My kids told me one day, “Dad, you won’t believe how hard Evan laughed at Dennis the Menace. We thought he was going to stop breathing.” This was the movie were Dennis defeats the bad guy. We had rented the VCR tape. Wanting to watch the movie myself, I made sure Evan was in the living room to watch the movie also. His brothers and sisters were neither kidding nor exaggerating. The final scene of this funny movie was of the mean office worker being caught in a copy machine, with hilarious pictures produced. Anyone else would have laughed out loud. Evan laughed so hard, he turned red. He couldn’t breathe. No wonder April once said, “Evan is going to die laughing.”

   As a father, I had always played with my children. They were silly games, such as chase. When Evan was born, David was eleven and too old for those games. But he watched me play with his younger brothers and sisters and was impressed with how much fun we were having. So when Evan was old enough to respond, David became the silliest big brother on the face of the planet. He would get down on the floor and play with Evan. Evan was delighted and spent many hours in laughter.  Today, both David and John are fathers that love to play with their children.

   His good humor was noted by others.  Once, Cindy had taken him to an Easter Seals program called Lekotek. Lekotek is Swedish for “Toy Library.” This toy library had toys that children with various disabilities could play with. On this day, he was standing in braces, playing with a wire controlled police car. He was laughing at the siren, flashing lights, and the quick darting motions of the toy. A local reporter was at the Lekotek center to do a story. She was, of course, totally charmed with Evan. When she wrote the news article about Lekotek, Evan was prominently featured. This was the first time Evan had his name in the newspaper. It would not be the last.

   On Evan’s third birthday, we were camping at Carpenteria State Beach. Cindy and I were cleaning up after lunch, when, to my surprise, a beautiful young woman, about twenty-five years old, dressed in beach attire and a broad smile, walked towards us. Now, I already had a beautiful woman at my side, but only because I chased her. So, understandably, I was confused by the approach of this stranger. She told us she was camping with another family and saw Evan. She introduced herself as a physical therapist and asked if she could work with Evan. I didn’t fully understand her motives until years later. Evan had attended a special camp. The camp director mentioned to us the female counselors wanted to hang around Evan, due to his cheery disposition. She told us that Evan was a “Chick Magnet.”

   When we took Evan back to UCLA for another surgery on his spinal cord, he brought with him his good humor. While he was quickly recovering, he was placed in the same room with a thirteen year old girl who was being treated for cancer. Just before we took Evan home, I overheard this girl talking on the phone to her friend. She was cheerfully describing the antics of the little boy in the next bed. I was amazed that Evan could lighten the heart of a girl in such miserable circumstances. But I really wasn’t surprised.

   As Evan has gotten older, he doesn’t laugh as much at the slapstick type of comedy, but there’s one funny thing he hasn’t out grown laughing at. Me. Yes, Evan just lives to give me a hard time.  He still loves to laugh and it is still contagious.