“I’ve got a couple jokes I have to tell you. One, I actually have to show you” I said to my friend Lynne almost as soon as I walked in to her hospital room and moved the chair closer to her bed.

I don’t know why I felt compelled to dish out a few jokes from the series of one-liners told to me the day before, but I couldn’t wait to see if the same bits would tickle my friend the way they did me.

“Wait, hand me a pen,” she said, flipping through the yellow lined legal pad on her tray table. “I should write these down so I could tell them to my boss.”

I didn’t think about it much at the time, but this was so much like her. She hadn’t heard any of my jokes yet, but she was already anticipating she’d hear at least one or two she’d like and want to pass on.

Wanting to write down a joke to jog her memory was her way of saying how serious she was about humor. It was obviously important to her, amidst all the problems and unhappiness in the world, while she was in the hospital no less, to focus on how she could pass on a little lightness to someone else.

I quickly handed her a pen, which I dug up from my purse, and started off my routine with the joke I promised needed to be shown.

“Why do Jewish men have such short necks?”  I waited to see clues in her expression that told me she had a good guess or that she heard the joke before.

After a few seconds, she shook her head — she didn’t have a good answer – and I drew my shoulders up towards my ears and tilted my head to one side in an exaggerated shrug.

She erupted in laughter and copped the same expression. I watched her roll her eyes, which twinkled with life despite not having had solid food for several days and getting oxygen through a couple of small plastic tubes attached to her nose. Maybe I was operating under the philosophy that you can’t let up when your audience is receptive. I followed up on this sight gag with a riddle?

“How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

Again, I waited a few seconds for her answer before supplying the one given to me. “Only one – but he has to give it a good twist.”

Again, I saw laughter pour through her. She seemed happy just experiencing a few seconds of lightness before attempting to write the joke down and before asking her roommate on the other side of the curtain if we were making too much noise.

A good chuckle is not only something that naturally begs to be shared, seeing the reaction in my friend’s face was more enjoyable than my own surprise when I first heard the punch line. Giving someone something to laugh about is certainly a case where it is better to give than to receive.

Giving and receiving a little laughter is no small thing.