Every Week We Laugh

Every Week We Laugh

On April 26th, 2026, my husband died, and I returned to my seat on the roller coaster of grief. From here, I can slip through the days while gazing out at the world without anyone looking in, especially during moments when tears blur my vision. I am self protective and quiet, watchful and aware.

Grief carries contradictions. I hold emotional opposites: I am hungry/I don’t want anything to eat; I want companionship/I want people to stay away; I want to go for a walk/I want to stay in my safe home; it goes on and on. But a week after Ken died, I took a break from death certificates and notifications and writing an obituary and drove to the gym because it is easy to be invisible there. I can be with other people while pedaling away the sad energy.

The owner of the gym had a different idea: Try a class.

My strategy to remain quiet and invisible in class failed. Fellow participants greeted me, told their names and asked for mine. The instructor introduced herself, announced my name and informed me of her first and only rule: “Don’t fall!” The class began and everyone focused on their movements: the instructions, the beat of the music, the instructor teaching and teasing, the callouts and responses from the participants that made me laugh. I mean…I laughed. I was suddenly in a world without Ken, without the duties of caretaking or phone calls for appointments, no more hour-long drives to the nursing home, no more emergencies that Ken fell again, Ken has pneumonia, Ken is being sent to the emergency room. No more waiting for the phone call that came shortly after midnight: Ken is actively dying.

Somewhere between the warm-up and the weights, I suddenly saw the individuals in the class and thought…they are like me. I am like them. I belong here. Every one of us has known the past and presence of sorrow, everyone is familiar with grief in all of its disguises, we all carry the scars of our stories, know love that held and love that collapsed, we know the loneliness and loveliness and challenges of an aging body in a world that is going too fast. We are together in this room on the lee side of life and still moving.

This class is my anchor now. Instead of driving to the nursing home two to three times a week, I drive to the gym and meet my fellow travelers in life. Shepherded by an intuitive and gifted instructor who is also “just like us,” we manage to move and mourn and complain about ab workouts. And we laugh. Every week, we laugh.