Humor+Forgiveness=?

March 1, 2025

Greetings Resilient Friends,

I don’t think of myself as a funny person, but I do love humor. Humor can heal.

This incident quickly popped into my mind. I call it an incident, but more like an embarrassing disaster, that I somehow saved. No, life saved my bacon.

And after that incident, I have a true understanding of “life saved my bacon” ;)

When I was in kindergarten, my teacher told my mom that I couldn’t carry a tune. The teacher said I was “tone deaf” and according to my mom, I should not sing or I would be irreparably damaged by the embarrassment. I know my mom was trying to protect me, but hearing that at five years old… I believed it.

When I got into my 30’s I realized, as many of us do, that false programs had been installed in my personal operating system as a child. I can’t sing was one of them. Another false program was…Big girls don’t cry.

To heal those two false beliefs, I had been singing in the shower…a lot! An old song, and very appropriate I thought. You might remember it…

Big Girls Don’t Cry by The Four Seasons (not the hotel). Frankie Valli sang the song’s chorus in a delightful soprano falsetto. And I must modestly say…I thought, in the shower, I was quite good.

So good in fact, that when our community decided to do a fund raiser talent night, I signed up.

The day of the talent show arrived, and I was back stage, humming…biiiiigggg girrrrls don ont cri ayiayiayi….ayiayiayi. The other participants were visibly nervous, but not me. I was the epitome of calm, almost Buddha like, except for my pants. I had on an extra long teeshirt with The Four Seasons (the hotel) on the front. The teeshirt covered up my too big pants that I had safety pinned at the waist to keep them up.

Finally, my name was called. As I walked on stage, the spotlight blinding me, I imagined the audience’s awe in anticipation of the musical magic about to unfold for their enjoyment.

I waved at the crowd as I approached the mic, and with a quick gesture to the pianist, I began my magnum opus with full confidence…

Big Girls Don’t Cry…bii igggg gurrrls do on’t criayiayiayi.

The first few bars went smoothly, but then it happened. I sang into the soprano falsetto chorus, and I sounded like a shrieking cat grabbed by its tail. I panicked, my mind racing to recover, I took a deep breath and popped the safety-pin at my waist and my pants fell down around my ankles.

The audience’s initial shock turned into uncontrollable laughter.

And…I was suddenly made aware of the glaring truth of my singing talents.

Determined to salvage the situation, I quickly decided improv was my only way out. I easily belted out more falsetto, off key shrieking cat sounds, and danced around with my pants at my ankles. The laughter grew louder, and at that moment, I embraced my train wreck performance with a “way out” life was offering me on a silver platter.

With a sharp, ear splitting high note, I finished, and took a dramatic bow. I addressed the audience, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed this comedic interpretation of a classic.”

The audience erupted in applause, their laughter now with me, not at me. I waved as I waddled off the stage with my pants still at my ankles. I never did find the safety-pin.

That night, I learned that we all need forgiveness…especially to forgive ourselves. And that humor and forgiveness together equals humility. Humility isn’t thinking less about ourselves, but rather, being able to laugh at ourselves. Humility is recognizing we all will have our moments of grandeur and our moments of utter spectacular failure… and sometimes life saves our bacon!

And so, my great singing disaster of the community talent show became a favorite story to tell.

A testament to the fact that finding humility, much like finding an off key cat shrieking falsetto can be the most resonate and resilient lesson of all.❤️

PS… That night, I also learned that sometimes moms are right, but us hard heads need to learn our lessons ourselves. ;)

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We are all in this together, Susan and Mike

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