16 Letters

16 Letters : Letter #6

 SEVEN

    Humor was something I knew I couldn’t teach Haley. In fact, humor could never ever be taught. It was either you had it or you don’t, and was more of a self experience than anything else. Well it just so happened that on Haley’s sixth birthday, she had to take one of her routine jabs at the local hospital.

    That day was just like any other morning weekend where I got Haley dressed in her favorite dress : a light pink sleeveless cotton dress, a gift from Katie’s mom. Yes. We still do keep in touch with her. I knew deep down that I wasn’t just her son-in-law. I was someone whom she could count on to. I was glad that even with Katie’s death, our relationship wasn’t watered down to empty nothingness. That would’ve been terrible.

    Haley sat down to a breakfast of pancakes and milk : her morning staple and must-have. I sat down across from her at the table with my morning must-have : coffee, and well, nothing else. “Where are we going today?” Haley asked me, chewing on a tiny slice of pancake she smothered in warm maple syrup with a dash of melting butter. “Umm. Well.” I started by saying. I can’t believe this. Haley doesn’t remember that it’s jab day today.

    She hates jab days and she’d throw a tantrum if I don’t tell her about it now and then sneak it on her later. “Its jab day, Haley” I broke it to her as casually as I possibly could. Haley’s gray eyes grew as big as saucer plates, giant super-sized saucer plates. “On my birthday?” Haley grumbled in disbelief, looking so upset that I knew any given day I’d take that jab for her just so I didn’t have to see her so down.

   “Well, look on the bright side, honey. If you take it today, you won’t have to take it tomorrow” I tried coaxing my daughter. Laughable reason I know, but that was the only trick I had left up my sleeves. “I guess” was all that Haley said to me. The rest of the morning was spent in silence except for Haley’s loud chewing.

                                                                                         ***

Katie’s sixth letter to us went like this:

Dear Dylan,

           Your laughter makes me smile. You have the loudest, warmest laugh I’ve ever heard and your sense of humor is spot on. You being funny was one of the reasons why I married you in the first place. I’ll always love the both of you.

Love, Katie.

   I went positively crazy thinking how I could possibly make a moment of fear for Haley, a lighthearted one. Haley sat nervously in her seat and the sounds of crying from inside the doctor’s room didn’t help us one bit. “Dada, do we really have to do this?” Haley pleaded me. “I’m afraid we do, honey” I tell her, eventhough I didn’t want to say that.

   “Haley Avenue?” the nurse calls my daughter’s name and I could see her freeze in pure fear. She pleaded with me one last time and as much as it killed me inside, I took her by the hand into the doctor’s room. And then all of a sudden, I thought of the game I used to play with Katie whenever she got upset. It was real simple but we somehow laughed from how silly we both sounded from it. It wasn’t a foolproof method to ease Haley off her jitters, but it was definitely worth a try.

    “Honey. Ha!” I said to Haley. “Ha?” she repeated as if I’ve just sprouted a third ear. “Ha-ha” I said to her. “Ha-ha-ha?” Haley said, finally realizing how the game went. Basically, you just add a ha every time you repeated what the last person had said.

 “Ha-ha-ha-ha”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha” Haley counted seven ha’s and said, laughed, them to me.

    By now her ‘ha-ha’s were starting to sound like real laughter in itself. It sounded real funny, what with our weird facial expressions to match. When we got to the nineteenth ha, we were already in a laughing fit over how silly we sounded. Haley hadn’t even realized that she had taken her jab, laughing while doing so.