We laughed harder than we have ever laughed. Staring up at stars. The high desert of eastern Oregon offered an unpolluted vantage point to view a meteor shower. It was mid-August. About 36 hours earlier my mother passed away sitting comfortably in a patio chair looking at a ponderosa pine while recovering from a 5-mile walk.

For a while, we just watched the stars, making the typical sounds of a star-gazing crowd, “Ohhh!” “Ahhh!” “Did you see that one?!” Then, the silence between each streak of light. The sky felt more familiar than it once did- like a new friend who quickly became an old friend. Before I thought of stars as almost occupying another distant dimension, but in that moment I was convinced that there isn’t much distance between anything. All you have to do is go for a walk and sit on a patio chair and you could cross dimensions in a heartbeat.  

Of course, in the silence we were enveloped in our shock, wondering “How could she not be here with us?” But somehow in that moment, the question almost seemed trivial. Of course, she’s with us. There’s no space between the dead and the living when looking at stars in the high desert.

Often a star would streak across and we would gasp in awe and then one would cry out, “Where?! You’re full of it!” We would laugh, and I would reflect that my mother would say the same thing. I wonder if my mother was still missing shooting stars, or if she finally caught a glimpse of one that put the ones we were seeing to shame. If we could have heard her, she was probably saying, “Wow! That’s terrific!” and we’d all respond, “Where?! Yeah right!”

Suddenly, the laughter burst. A little secret was shared among the group. It was inconsequential at its worst. Yet it carried just the right weight to it. It was true and extravagant and kid-like all at the same time. We became hyenas. There were other groups nearby, but our regard for others evaporated into thin desert air. The cacophony rolled like an ocean with each additional detail of the secret shared affecting the force of the next wave of great, utter laughter.

Just 2 days earlier, I was planning the final touches to a camp I planned to run over the weekend in Bellingham. The next day, we were driving to Bend hopelessly incapable of making sense of anything, relying on grace to help us cover the miles left to my brother’s house. Instead of guiding a campfire conversation with a group of high schoolers about something that seemed important at the time, I was lying on the desert sand laughing at something so insignificant, knowing the moment was loaded with significance.

In the midst of our guffaws, my dad had the wisdom to stop and listen for a moment. There were 8 of us in the group, but this was no small party of laughter. It was a multitude- a party on the scale that my mom would plan. We could have stayed in that moment forever, laying in the desert at night, contemplating everything and laughing at nothing.

What is joy? I have no idea anymore… as though I ever did.

The background image is a finger painting by Iris Scott. You can find out more information about this painting here.