A loving family is such a gift from heaven and I’m blessed with one. My three brothers and I and our children gathered together Saturday at baby brother’s farm to celebrate the beginning of summer. We call it the McMurray Fam Jam, been doing this for about ten years. We had the best time. We’re never short of laughter and once the stories start no one is safe from the embarrassing stories of childhood. We laugh till we cry and lose our breath. My daddy’s baby sister was there, still young in her mid-eighties, and she had some stories to share, too.

Somehow the subject of my thumb sucking came up and it was all down hill from there for me. Every Christmas till I was about 10 years old Santa Claus would leave me a message on the dining room mirror, written in red lipstick, “Lane, please quit sucking your thumb.” Yeah, hate to admit it…my parents tried everything to make me quit, even the little leather lace-up case tied on my thumb, I just sucked right over it and the hot pepper sauce! I finally told my Daddy if he could get my brothers to quit calling me what they had nicknamed me, I would. They quit and so did I. Saturday, they couldn’t even remember the nickname till in a weak moment of laughter I told them. They better not call me that next time I see them!

Anyway it was on now for sister and that story of my thumb sucking told by baby brother carried over to the hay bales my brothers bailed to pay for my Conn Constellation trumpet in high school, which my grandson is playing in the band now. We’re still laughing and I hear middle brother pipe up and say, “Years later, Daddy says sister says I want go to Europe.” So back to the hay fields they went. Fifty something years later and they still remind me of their hard work in the hay fields that purchased my trumpet and sent me to England and Scotland in college. I love my brothers and they love me! Thanks for the trumpet and the trip, brothers! Had I realized I would have thanked you then.

My granddaughter came home with me from the family party for a week’s visit while her brothers are at Scout Camp. She’ll be ten this month and we have the best time. We laugh none stop, swear I need oxygen sometimes when we get tickled! After swimming this afternoon at baby brother’s house we went to get a McDonald’s flurry on the way home. As I paid at the window I asked the lady if they sold the Grandma McFlurry and she lectured me about getting back in line to order one…and I was just asking since I didn’t see it advertised.

My granddaughter was trying not to laugh and then the window lady hands me the flurries and says, “We’re out of spoons, you want forks?” My granddaughter just lost it and got so tickled! As I drove away she says, “Patty, you forgot to get the forks!” We laughed all the way home. Last summer when my granddaughter was visiting the McDonald’s lady said, “The ice cream machine is broken. We can’t make a flurry but we can make a milkshake.” Folks, you cannot make this stuff up! We’re still laughing and trying to figure that riddle out.

I think God gave us the ability to laugh and it’s a gift we should all enjoy. Laughter is such a wonderful stress reliever. Laughter helps us battle anxiety and worry. And it’s so much fun to really have a good laugh. And the best thing about laughter is it’s free and it’s contagious. Job 8:21 reads, “He will fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting.” In Proverbs 17:22 we read, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” A joyful heart with laughter can lift your spirits in so many ways.

God must have a sense of humor because he created us in his image so if we burp he must burp, too! And look at some of the animals, the kangaroos and the platypuses, he must have chuckled as he created them. I read where a smile is the touching of souls and by smiling at someone you shine onto them. I like to think of smiles as sunshine rays warming someone’s heart.

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” — Charlie Chaplin