The Laugh Cry: When Grief, Motherhood, and Joy Collide
There’s an emotion I love… a tangled, confusing, deeply human feeling that happens when you’re not sure whether to laugh or cry… because somehow you’re doing both.
The laugh cry.
It’s where joy meets ache. Where hilarity brushes up against heartbreak. For me, it’s where the most memorable moments live.
This past weekend, I had one of those moments.
It Started With a Movie
It started with a meme.
My brother texted me a screenshot of Bette Midler in Beaches, and suddenly it hit me… I’ve never shown this movie to my kids. The movie that defined so much of my childhood. The one we cried to on the couch with our mom. The one that hit her so deeply, the emotion rippled straight through her and into us… a legacy of quotes, tears, and iconic Bette one liners.
So on the laziest of days… surrounded by Dunkin cups, stray toys, and a fortress of blankets… I convinced my 10 and 9 year old to watch it with me.
My brother and I were certain my daughter would be sobbing by the end.
Here’s what actually happened.
Watching Through a New Lens
I’m on the couch ugly crying… watching this movie through an entirely new lens.
I’m a mom now.
I’ve lost my own mother.
I’ve battled breast cancer.
I’m hormonal. I’m wrecked. I am sobbing.
My son, clearly alarmed, runs upstairs to get my husband, telling him something is wrong with mom. My husband bolts downstairs expecting a disaster… and instead finds a mess of kids, snacks, blankets, and one woman crying her face off to Beaches.
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A Family Story I’ll Never Forget
And in my emotional puddle, I decide to tell the kids a story.
When we were little… before my brother came out… he once taped over a very important home video. A tape our grandfather had been searching for. When the whole family finally gathered to watch it, expecting footage of my mom and aunt as children… what we got instead was pure gold.
My 12 year old brother, performing Bette Midler’s For the Boys. Full drama. Full charisma. No shame. No warning. He had never shown it to anyone before… and now it was playing for the entire family.
We could not breathe.
We had never laughed so hard.
The Moment It All Collided
And just like that… telling that story in that moment… I was back there again. Remembering everyone who’s no longer here. Feeling the sting of grief and the absurdity of it all at the same time.
That’s when it happened.
The full on, body shaking, mascara smearing laugh cry.
What My Kids Taught Me
And here’s what I learned about my kids that day.
My daughter… emotionally unbothered 🤣 Not a single tear. Ice cold.
My son… he understood the assignment. Every time he saw me crying… laughing… both… he threw his head back and let out a dramatic, wailing sob. Pure theater. Channeling the exact spirit of my brother’s long lost Bette Midler performance.
And somehow… my husband caught it on video.
A core memory captured.
Messy. Sacred. Ridiculous. Heartwarming.
A laugh cry we’ll replay for years to come.
Thank you, Bette Midler.
You’ve done it again.
Because Beaches Did This to Us
Some movies didn’t just entertain us… they imprinted on us. Beaches is one of those films. For a lot of Gen X and older millennial kids, it was an early lesson in friendship, loss, humor, and that weirdly sacred place where you laugh and cry at the same time.
