VICTORIA – You can hear them before you see them, a mom and two daughters are having a picnic and laughing a lot. They’re also being watched by a trio of seagulls.
“That’s Tim,” says the eldest daughter pointing at one of the birds. “That’s Welford!” says the youngest, gesturing towards another. “And that’s Wilhelmina!” proclaims the mom, before all three start laughing.
“Our family laughs a lot,” says Sofia, the youngest. “So we tell a lot of jokes.”
Her mom Annette says they appreciate humour so much, they give "happy jars" at Christmas. They write jokes on slips of paper and fill the jar so you can pull out a joke a day.
“Doctor! Doctor! I feel like a pair of curtains,” Lahna, the oldest daughter tells us. “Well pull yourself together!”
The family laughs at the pun, followed by caws from a seagull. Perhaps it was Tim laughing, or maybe Wilhelmina. Sofia couldn’t tell; she’s losing her peripheral vision because of a degenerative eye disease. “It’s like you’re looking through a tunnel, “ she says
Her doctors said she’ll likely be blind by her teens. Although that sometimes feels scary, Sofia definitely hears laughter when she stumbles or stubs her toe on something she can’t see. “I just make fun of her,” her sister Lahna says. “Sometimes you got to get through it that way.” Sofia nods in agreement. “You just laugh through it.”
Although Sofia’s vision is limited, her perspective is expansive. “You could fall into a pit of despair and only see what’s terrible,” she explains. “Or you can appreciate what you have.”
So she’s focusing on being grateful – for her family, her new feathered friends (Tim, Welford and Wilhelmina), and the next joke that will be pulled out of the "happy jar." “What is life without laughter?" she asks.
