Gallows humor is also a kind of hope. If we can still laugh, we can still hope. Not with a “things are going to be OK” kind of hope. But with a no-matter-how-terrible-things-are-they’re-somehow-still-OK kind of hope. That kind of hope requires a deep laugh, not a cheap laugh. The cheap, dismissive, don’t-go-there-just-keep-it-lite laughs are actual

Humor has an almost anesthetic quality to it, lowering the focus on pain and allowing us to remember the joys in life together, even during the worst of times.