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.