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Personal Reflection: Humor as a Uniting Factor in Communication

 Humor has the paradoxical ability to greatly divide or unite people, which is something that has always fascinated me. Humor is seen as both a facilitator and friction-inducer in social interaction. I find that in my life, it has helped to unite more so than to divide and I have used it as a means to understand people and myself better.

I know that I have spoken on this before in our Week 2 Discussion, but it felt appropriate to talk about today since it is the anniversary of my brother's passing. In March of 2022, my baby brother, Noah, passed away. Obviously, this time in my life was rife with grief and tears upon tears. But after Noah's memorial service, my older brothers and I sat in the bed of his truck and exchanged memories of our brother. We cried and cried but we also laughed so much because we could not stop talking about how funny he was and all of the crazy things we experienced together. The joy and laughter we had in that time is something that I will never forget and is a memory I carry with me always. This time could have obviously split us apart as I know that has happened to many people before when something of this magnitude occurs. But I strongly believe that our ability to find humor during that time allowed us to remain close and to carry each other through the darkest time in our lives.

Humor has the ability to create strong feelings of unity and togetherness, which are quintessential to being human and this personal reflection of my experience is a testament of that.💛

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