I don’t mean to imply constant stoicism. My parents laughed. A lot. At everything. They laughed telling silly things their children had done; they laughed ruefully at mistakes they made. They laughed at accidentally losing my husband and I in traffic. They got pretty sober in the moment, but after a tire was fixed, they laughed about it. They joked and smiled at each other’s foibles. They read the funnies every day and especially the funny pages in the Sunday paper—the comics.

This, too, was a conscious decision. My mother preached gratitude and expressed thanks. My father laughed heartily and lovingly. They never mocked us. Often their laughter was followed by, “What can we do to help?” and “This is something that helped me with that problem.”

I can hear my dad saying, “Well, Margaret!”, stressing Mar, addressing my mom. He’d explain what he did or planned to do; she’d laugh at the misunderstanding and then they’d work it out, forgiving each other and trying again. I have sometimes been complimented on expressing myself without blaming or shaming the other person. I learned from the best, I tell you.