You hear it when I hear it

Terry always said he didn’t tell jokes; he just opened his mouth and whatever strange creature lived in his brain leapt out, fully formed, shiny, and usually inappropriate. He wasn’t wrong. His humor was quick, surprising, and often so sharp that people needed a moment to realize what had just hit them. I used to watch their expressions as the realization dawned. Confusion. Processing. And then the laughter - big, loud, and entirely unplanned. Terry loved that. He loved that moment where the world stopped being serious and just… cracked open.

On the radio shows he was part of, he was known for “straying from the script,” he’d say something wildly off-the-wall that no one saw coming, not even himself. If someone later asked him, “How did you come up with that?” he’d shrug and say, “I have no idea. You hear it when I hear it.”

And that was true. Terry didn’t write jokes. He didn’t plan punchlines. He simply saw the world at a slightly different angle than the rest of us. While most people walked in straight lines, Terry took graceful, joyful zigzags. He could find humor in the complicated, the everyday, the maddening.

But beneath the mischief was something sincere. Laughter, to him, wasn’t a hobby - it was a ministry. That’s why he loved The Clown’s Prayer, his favorite little poem. It reminded him that bringing joy was sacred work. To make people forget, just for a moment, their heaviness, their worry, the ache in their bones or in their hearts… that meant something.

He never said it directly, but I think he hoped his humor softened the world a bit. Like snow falling on hard ground. Gentle. Light. Brief, but beautiful.

Looking back now, I realize he was living a promise to himself:

More laughter than tears.
More cheer than despair.
More reasons to smile.

And when I think of him making a room erupt with laughter, unable to help himself, I like to imagine that final line coming true:

“When you made My people smile,
you made Me smile.”

Terry certainly did.