I called a dear friend one day telling her I needed a place to live because I was currently living in a motel. She responded swiftly with, “call Jack Neworth.” I called Jack and over the next few months, we became friends and he graciously rented a room to me in his apartment. My gratitude to both this friend and Jack is never ending. Out of my gratitude however, comes a deep mourning. Let me share with you why my mourning for Jack matters.
Laughter and mourning may seem like opposite ends of a spectrum of experience, but perhaps mourning and laughter are more connected than we originally imagined. When we mourn a loss of someone’s passing, we often remember their jokes or times they made us laugh and our hearts break open with care of this person’s life. As I remember Jack, I do so with great sadness, but I am soon laughing as I remember all the times he would joke with me about absolutely everything, from the mundane to the philosophically profound. Jack had a joke or comedic response to it all. Responding to life with laughter, jokes, and comedy is a gift Jack had; sharing that gift with others, well that’s a mitzvah if I ever saw one.
Comedy was everything to Jack. All Jack wanted, according to our conversations, was to bring the joy of laughter to everyone he met. Sharing a joke and hearing whoever he told the joke to laugh was a joy Jack chased until the very end. As I understand it, even as Jack lay in bed riddled with cancer, he still wanted to joke around. He still wanted to share in a laugh. I believe it brought him great joy. Perhaps we should all chase after the joy of laughter. Would life’s challenges be easier to cope with if we did?
We all have ways of coping when life presents us with challenges we deem too overwhelming and for Jack, whenever life gifted him with a challenge, he responded with humor. I can remember when he would share his frustrations with me about this or that, and then he would end it with witty sarcasm, never intending for a second to cast punishment on others, but to make sense of what could have been - and didn’t go as he planned - with laughter. The world would be a different place if our responses to life’s less-than-perfect moments were met with humor. That isn’t to say Jack didn’t take pain seriously. If anything, Jack cared so deeply about others, it inspired his columns, allowing all of us to share in his thought process. Jack’s witty responses were a gift to us all. I will most certainly be taking a note out of Jack’s playbook and respond to life’s challenges with humor and wit.
Witty as Jack was, Jack was not without his profoundly deep sense of care for others. As you know, he wrote countless articles that lifted us up with sarcastic wit, but alongside the articles that dealt with laughing matters (hence the title of his columns), were the articles that dealt with deep pain. In writing about other’s pain (see “Hope for Andrew”), Jack shared his own concern for humanity. He cared so much about how we lived in this world: be it through our politics, or through how we treated those in prison. Jack didn’t miss a beat and that’s what made him not only a gifted writer, but an amazing human being. To be comedian after all, is to be observant. Jokes only ring true when we are finely attuned to other’s experiences. Humor, comedy, and the art of telling a joke lies in the ability to empathize. Jack was filled with empathy. And it is his empathy that I most admired about him. Yes, he made me laugh, and I will continue to laugh when I read his articles, but I will always remember his compassion for others: especially those in the most need.
Dearest Jack Neworth, you are remembered and loved so very much. Santa Monica will never forget you, and neither will I. Thank you for everything, the laughter, the jokes, the wit, and most of all, your graciousness and deep care.
Darya Jones, Santa Monica
