Death Smiles

All a man can do is . . .

“I employ humor to hold the horror at bay,” I told my therapist.

For instance, last week while I was out of town at another of our statewide offices that still had up their Halloween decorations, I asked one of the hard-working, under-paid secretaries to take my picture shaking a skeleton’s hand. When she did, I captioned the photo, “Still waiting for that raise?” They all howled with laughter.

Yesterday, I sent this photo out to family and friends with the caption, “With apologies to Marcus Aurelius, ‘Death smiles at us all . . . all a man can do is shake his boney hand.’”

The great Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, famously said, “Death smiles at us all . . . all a man can do is smile back.” I first heard this quote in the movie “Gladiator.”

When I told my therapist that “I employ humor to hold the horror at bay,” my therapist asked me, “What is the ‘horror?”

“Death,” I said. And I meant it.

But I know a man who helps me laugh in the face of death because He went there Himself . . . and then lived to tell about it.

The man’s name is Jesus . . . and I get to be with Him!