My dad was very ill but kept his sense of humor until the end. One day, he was being wheeled from his hospital room to have some kind of scan done. They accidentally bumped the gurney into the wall and he slightly hit his head. Of course, being afraid of a lawsuit, the hospital had someone from neurology come in to check him. The neurologist held up three fingers and said "How many fingers am I holding up?" and my dad responded "Tuesday." The medical staff seemed very alarmed but we all started laughing and then my dad said "just kidding, it's three, I'm fine."

During that same hospitalization in New York City, our family of seven (not counting my dad) shared two hotel rooms with two king size beds each. Unfortunately, the hospital decided to keep my dad an extra day and the hotel only had one room available so all seven of us had to cram into it. My mom got one side of the bed and we drew cards to see who the other three people were who got to sleep on the beds and who had to sleep on the couch or the floor.

I slept on the other side of the king size bed from my mom. The next morning, most of the family took a taxi to the hospital but it was a beautiful day and the hospital was 20 blocks so myself, my brother and my sister decided to walk. As we're walking, my sister says "So, what was it like sleeping with mom?" We noticed other people on the street were starting to walk slightly closer to us to listen to this conversation which, out of context, was quite funny. So I said "oh, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be" and my brother said "I hope dad gets discharged from the hospital today or I'm going to have to sleep with her tonight." It was some gallows humor at a time it was REALLY needed.