The Exuberant Laugh-Ers
No one laughs as loudly or as exuberantly as a child
from the ghetto or the barrio.
I know, for I have worked with children
from a ghetto for six years, and from a barrio for five.
They have learned to laugh with absolute pure flat out sugar joy.
Their excited piercing scream-laugh can go from zero to sixty in seconds.
Every good moment for them is a victory lap.
For it is a moment when they realize their brothers and sisters are all alive.
No one has been shot in a drive by.
No one has found a dead body in the park today.
It might be a moment that Mom is not shooting up heroin.
It may be a moment that Dad comes home and does not beat on anyone.
But these children know how to celebrate a good moment.
Sure, they can be loud, but they have earned this right.
They might be dancing with pure joy because you gave them a piece of sausage pizza.
They might be jumping up and down with pure happy because you ate lunch with them.
I relish creating moments like these with the children I work with.
There is no laughter more boisterous, more happy, or more joyous than the laughter
of a child who knows how to cherish a moment.
If I can give one child a day, this moment, it is enough.
My job is done.
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