When I started scrolling Netflix last night I was expecting to find some horror or action movie to watch. The side effect of scheduled nights with the wife is that on most nights I am choosing something we both will enjoy. When I am on my own I like to search out things I know she won’t like. Instead I choose a Mike Birbiglia comedy special which she would only mildly tolerate or watch for me. Just like when we saw him at the Warner Theater years ago.
The thing I didn’t expect was for the comedy special to heavily feature his father’s stroke and to be focused on the end of life of a parent. That was a little like what have I stumbled into here, and it shouldn’t surprise me that someone born three years before me is having life events happen at the exact same time. Birbiglia even mentioned in his special that his father was born in 1940, the same year as mine.
This isn’t the first time this has happened with this comedian. If we journey back to 2019 Mike Birbiglia has a comedy special about the birth of his daughter. 2019 was the year we welcomed the twins into the world. I know Mike Birbiglia’s comedy style is to be the relatable guy, but this is taking it too far.
One of the ways we deal with the stress of life is by laughing about it, and right now my life has a lot of stress. Birbiglia’s 2019 comedy special on the birth of his daughter brought me a lot of comfort and became even more relatable when Abigail was born in 2020. I don’t know if his newest comedy special, The Good Life brought me comfort or simply reopened fresh wounds, but I did enjoy it and the loss of a parent is something everyone is going to deal with.
The one thing he did mention was cherishing the time we have with our loved ones and I have come to realize there is never enough time. I remember the Monday after my father came home from the hospital and was in home hospice. I made the choice to not visit. I had seen him the day before and I was going over on Wednesday of that week. As it happened that Sunday was the last time I saw my father awake and our only interaction was me helping the home health aide lift him onto the toilet. I was expecting the hospice care to last longer than eight days.
I wasn’t ready, but I don’t think we ever are. I said it in the NICU journal I wrote that we are all going to die with a life unfinished. There will be books unfinished, movies unwatched, questions unanswered, and amends not mended. When you’re the one left behind there are moments not shared, questions unasked, and time not spent. We are always going to end up with things undone, but that is the nature of life and it is good there is a comedy special for that and there are relatable comedians like Mike Birbiglia out there to share a laugh.
David Huzzard Writes 