Pee in your pants kind of laughter when you can’t catch your breath, and your belly muscles hurt and tears are streaming is too rare an event for adults.

Robert Provine, a scientist who has stalked wild laughing for years reports in the Magazine “Mental Floss,” that children laugh upwards of three hundred times a day, whereas adults laugh between seventeen and twenty times a day. How utterly sad!

The advantages of laughter include the release of soothing endorphins, the reduction of stress hormones, improved muscle tone and the lowering of blood pressure. In his book Anatomy of an Illness, Norman Cousins reports he cured himself of a debilitatingly painful disease called ankylosing spondylitis by watching Marx Brothers’ films and episodes of Candid Camera.

Lucky me to have fallen in love with a man whose greatest gifts are his sense of humor and his sense of human. Every day we laugh. Even in the midst of loss or tragedy or political upheaval, there is dark humor.

At my mother-in law’s funeral service in New York in 1989, the Rent-a-Rabbi, who had never met her spoke of the many relatives who were unable to attend her service that cold February afternoon. At the end of the list, he said, “… and of course, there’s Cousin Ralph.” Well, there was no Cousin Ralph in the family. Later, we thought that maybe he meant Cousin Jack and perhaps got the schwa sound confused in his mind and said, “Ralph.”

During his pre-service interview with my husband, his brother and sister, the rabbi heard some pretty outlandish claims about the deceased. Among them, that Friedabel, their mom, was a brilliant jazz-harmonica  player (not true). Then, my husband piped up suggesting that it wasn’t too late to follow through with Mom's request (not true either) to have her freeze-dried and sent in mailable sections - like weekly installments - to her estranged husband. We laughed till the tears came.

When, during the service the Rabbi said, “…Cousin Ralph,” perhaps he was joining in the fun or maybe seeking comic revenge. My personal belief is that he was clueless and in over his head. Whatever his motive, when we, the family heard  “Cousin Ralph,” a slow-building rolling giggle began in the first two rows of the pews where the family sat. By the time my husband stood up to share the eulogy, he was hoping the rest of the congregants would think that the shoulder shaking they saw in the family pews before them was from sobbing, not laughing. As he eased into the aisle and made his way up to the dais, he gave us the most convincing imitation of a stern seventh-grade English teacher’s glare he could muster while trying to wrestle his own smile into submission.

What follow was his, as usual, honest and heartfelt recollections of his mom, Friedabel Smith, and her life on a roller-coaster. For all gathered, there were laughs and tears.

Cousin Ralph followed us into the reception and has given us streaming eyes, sore belly laughter ever since. As I age, and gravity continues its persistent tug on me, maybe I’ll even pee my pants again next time someone mentions Cousin Ralph.