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aknowlton

Death, stress and the Dark Arts

Noo, I'm not talking about Satanic worship. There will be no pentagrams or blood ceremony in this article. I'll save that for October's entries.


I am talking about coping mechanisms and the art of dealing with the ever looming specter of death with dark humour☠️

 

If you are too uptight to enjoy a good joke about your own mortality; than I'm afraid we can't be friends.


Picture it: Newmarket, Ontario. It's March 2018. I'm strapped to the operating table, looking like Jesus on the cross- both arms outwardly anchored to platforms jutting off the main operating table to form a crude crucifix. I'm nervous. My eyes are so teary everything has taken on a watery sheen.


As I feel the sedation begin to pull me under I look at my cardiologist and slurr:


"Doc, if I don't make it, do me a favour? Take my heart out and yell "Kali Ma!!," like in the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."





My last consious sounds I remember hearing were her chuckles.


 

When life is at it's most scary or trying to tear my heart out through it's saddest tragedy, I fight back using the only weapon I know how to weild: inappropriate humour.


I did it when my dad was dying in 2015 of cancer, when one of my best friends suddenly died last fall, and even when I lost a baby in a late term miscarriage.


I get my share of scoldings.


Old ladies feigning shock, shrieking an indignant, "Angela!"



Guess what? None of that changes me. I am who I am.


I laugh inappropriately. At funerals. In hospitals.


Maybe it's the Native in me. As a people we employ humour in all aspects of our lives.


Indigenous artists, activists and leaders have used dark humour as a way to subversively challenge the colonialist status quo for decades.


Humour provides a safe place; or in the case of dark humour, a not-so-safe place, to seek comfort and to self-sooth in times of distress. Humour is also a valuable communication tool; sometimes an unpalatable truth tastes better when it's laced with a joke. And sometimes you dark, creepy jokes just scare your audience into backing down. Either way, it's a win.


When it comes to my CKD I make jokes to let others know it's ok to still find joy in life, even when it's ending. I make jokes to mask the terror I feel when another integral cog in body's clock breaks down. And I make jokes simply because it's something you aren't supposed to joke about.






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valnishkwe
Mar 14, 2021

Yes I concur you are an awesome writer. I'd read your book.

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Debra Waylen
Debra Waylen
Mar 13, 2021

Girl you should write a book!! You have an amazing writing gift!! <3

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aknowlton
Mar 13, 2021
Replying to

Thanks Deb ❤️

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