Anyone who knew Ilene knew her delightful, self-deprecating sense of humor. In one of her writings, she described it as “light and racy, dark and dry … like a rich wine.”
For her, nothing that might elicit a laugh or a chuckle was off limits. More often than not (though not always), Ilene greeted each loss of a physical function with a wisecrack. She used witticism as a way to keep the disease from controlling her and as a way to find meaning from the disease. She often referred to them as gifts.
By October 2005, Ilene could no longer move on her own from the wheelchair to the toilet or back. Someone had to lift and transfer her back and forth. She wrote that the “privacy of knowing that my bladder and bowl history are not my own.” Here is how she found meaning in this humiliation.
“The gift here is that my best laughs of the day are often those moments when I am lifted from my chair to the toilet seat. The incredulous humor of telling someone else, my left foot is on its edge, preventing me from standing. My right knee is too close to the bowl tipping forward and off balance. Both legs are bent and you must lift me higher to get them straight and locked. My pants just slid down to my ankles, making it impossible to be lifted while I am being held up. My outer pants have been lifted up while my underpants remain around my knees.
“It’s laughter that gets me, gets us, through the days and nights.
“Laughter. God’s answer to misery.”
NK
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