The Last Laugh

A little levity brightens a dark time at the end of my mother's life

Release date: Tuesday, November 4, 2025

October 16, 2024

My mother is on her deathbed.

The hospice nurse tells us it won’t be long now. My sister and I are perched at the edge of her bed. Mom is resting on her back, propped up by a few pillows.

Her snow-white hair, still luxuriously thick, is sticking up in the back, ruffled by the pillows. I smooth it back down with a wet brush. I’m glad I took her to get her hair done last week, I think. She’d want to look her best today. The last day of her life.

The oxygen concentrator hums as it pumps precious air through the plastic tubing and into Mom’s nose. Not enough to sustain her for much longer, though. After 87 years, her lungs and heart are shutting down.

Mom opens her eyes, squeezes our hands, tells us she loves us. Over and over. Her voice is hoarse. We tell her we love her back, our voices cracking, too.

My mother, Judy, and I a few weeks before her death.

I can’t quite grasp that she’s dying. So many times before, I was sure we were going to lose her. She always pulled through, somehow, to her deep disappointment. But this time, death is near. I can sense it.

A few months earlier, I uncovered a long-buried family secret. Caught up in the drama, I began pursuing every lead, determined to reveal the entire story, detail by damning detail. I eagerly shared my updates with Mom. But by that time, her mind was too porous, her memories too faint.

The chaplain arrives. She greets Mom in her soothing voice, settling in a chair and pulling it close to the bed. They met last week, she reminds Mom. She begins playing music on her phone. Joni Mitchell, I recall.

Pulling out a book from her bag, the chaplain opens it and starts reciting Psalm 23 to my mother.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…

The valley of the shadow of death. This is, by far, the most somber moment in my life.

Mom appears to be listening intently. When the chaplain finishes the reading, Mom’s eyes open wide behind her glasses. The chaplain places her hand on my mother’s.

“Judy, what does the psalm mean to you?”

Mom looks at the chaplain, then at us.

The chaplain gently repeats, a little louder this time: “What did the reading mean to you, Judy?”

The three of us lean toward my mother, straining to catch what may be her last words. A profound insight, a final pearl of wisdom, a calm acceptance of death, perhaps.

Mom lifts her head from the pillows. “I don’t know what it means,” she says, her voice strong and clear. “But I’ve gotta pee!”

In an instant, the tension evaporates.

My hand flies to my mouth to stifle the laugh about to burst from my throat, but I’m too late. My sister is cracking up, too. The chaplain struggles to sustain her sober demeanor, then gives in to our irreverent glee.

Watching us, Mom begins to giggle, her lips widening into an amused smile. Soon we are all chortling deliriously, gasping for breath, wiping tears from our eyes. Each attempt to return to the gravity of the moment leads to another wave of giddiness.

Our gnawing grief expelled, temporarily, from our psyches. Laughter soothing our souls.

Just after midnight, my sister and I at her bedside, Mom takes her last breath. But it is her last laugh — our last laugh — I will forever hold in my heart.

In honor of my mother, Judy Lee (Omtvedt) Rapinac
24 September 1937 - 17 October 2024

---

This post is part of the Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge:
LOUD LAUGHS