Tragedies in Life
Soften the Heart
By Terry Marotta

Last summer I had a letter from a reader who said she sees elements of the funny and the sad in everything I write. And how else would you be growing up in a family whose idea of fun was telling stories in the kitchen and laughing their heads off—‘til suddenly the stories tilted and the next thing you knew you were all sobbing into the dish towels?

She said she was writing because she had a question around the memory of "a sort of ongoing war" between two professors at the college from which she graduated.

"One maintained you don’t begin to live life until you conceive it as tragedy; the other that you don’t begin to live ‘til you conceive of it as comedy.

"Interestingly, the professor who saw life as essentially tragic sensed the poignancy of life and had a soft heart, while the one who saw life as essentially comic was always cross. He seldom laughed or smiled and was extremely severe.

"What do you make of this?" she ended by asking.

And I’ve been trying to think of an answer ever since.

Woody Allen’s remark comes to mind, about how all comedy was just tragedy plus time. So does Charlie Chaplin’s who defined it as life seen from a distance, while tragedy was life seen up close, and don’t we all get that? Think of the drama of your own little life, the earnest frenzied efforts you keep making in hopes that they’ll one day pay off. I bet we even LOOK like the Little Tramp sometimes, earnestly scooting around with that same waddling toddle. All we need is a little mustache and some baggy pants.

But let’s assume there really ARE two camps of people with these divergent "takes" on life. Let’s start with the ones who think we’re all walking around with big old "Kick Me" signs on our backs that somebody somewhere is getting a giant boot out of.

Why would anyone WANT to see life this way, I wonder, and who exactly are these characters?

Professional comedians maybe, who you might expect would know a joke when they saw one? But most humorists aren’t hard like this. Not the ones that come most readily to my mind anyway.

I think of Abe Lincoln and Mark Twain from the 1800s. Both were famously entertaining and irreverent storytellers. Both had their hearts about broken and their loves permanently darkened in adulthood by the illness and death of immediate family members.

And yet they told their funny stories.

And yet they kept people smiling.

You’d have to study up on them some to know that Lincoln dreamed about opening his young son’s grave to gaze once more on his little face.

You’d have know that Mark Twain in later life often said that he’d come in with Halley’s Comet in 1835 and heartily hoped to go out with it when it came back again in 1910. (He got his wish.)

No, the people who make us laugh don’t see life as farce. They see it as tragic, as tragic it surely was if you could look back on it from Beyond.

Why tragic?

Tragic because it ended so quickly. We were just getting started and it was time to go.

Tragic because of the suffering that was so much a part of it.

The people who see all this tend to treat others gently, and this is the kind of person you want to be.

And yes you might cry into some dish towels with your companions, but afterward you will all smile sheepishly and blow your noses, and then sit down together for some tea.

Write Terry at tmarotta@comcast.net