Jeff is our youngest child, a big tough stylish kid, handsome and strong, the teenager all the little kids love and the kind girls phone to discuss math problems with (or at least that's what they tell us when they finally get past our customer service department). His laugh was enough to bring the house down when he was a boy, but that contagious laugh began to vanish by the time he turned 12 and was completely extinct by his 13th birthday. It's a horrible thing to watch someone view life wearing the glasses of a teenager, trading in joy because it isn't so cool.
Our kids have always laughed a lot, partly because they got their sense of humour from my wife's side of the family, whose motto is this: “It's all funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's hilarious!”