One of the funniest moments in my dream happened in the middle of one of the strangest situations.
There were bears nearby.
My sister was scared.
The atmosphere was tense.
And yet somehow I found myself carrying her and joking:
“Look at this. A thirty-year-old horse and I’m carrying her around.”
I woke up laughing.
But the more I thought about it, the more familiar it felt.
I’ve noticed that some people become quieter when life becomes difficult.
Others become funnier.
Not because they’re unaffected.
Because humor is how they stay afloat.
The joke arrives before the panic can settle in.
The laughter creates just enough distance to make a frightening situation manageable.
I’ve seen this at funerals.
In hospitals.
During breakups.
During family crises.
Someone always cracks a joke.
Someone always says the inappropriate thing that makes everybody laugh.
For years I thought this meant people weren’t taking things seriously.
Now I think the opposite may be true.
Humor often appears when reality becomes too heavy to carry directly.
A joke doesn’t remove the weight.
It redistributes it.
It reminds us that we are still human inside the seriousness.
That fear has not completely taken over.
That despair has not won.
The dream could have been about danger.
Instead, my strongest memory is a ridiculous comment about carrying an adult sibling.
Maybe that says something important.
Maybe resilience isn’t always dramatic.
Maybe sometimes resilience sounds suspiciously like laughter at exactly the wrong moment.
And maybe that’s why it works.
