Rant: my uncle's cancer joke at Thanksgiving split the table in half and I still don't know who was wrong

Julia Rodriguez · 2026-10-02T17:40:06.874093+00:00

So last Thanksgiving at my aunt's place in Toledo, my uncle Ray, who is 14 months past his prostate cancer treatment, made a joke about his radiation appointments that had half the table laughing and the other half staring at their plates. My cousin Maria got up and left the room, and her mom followed her, and you could hear them whispering in the kitchen for like 10 minutes. Ray just kept eating and said "well, I thought it was funny" and nobody knew what to say after that. Here's the thing, he's the one who went through it, so doesn't he get to decide if it's fair game? But Maria was the one driving him to appointments every week, so maybe she gets a vote too. Where do you all land on this, does the person who lived it own the joke, or does the family who watched it happen get a say?

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Rant: my uncle's cancer joke at Thanksgiving split the table in half and I still don't know who was wrong | Can We Still Laugh - Free To Speak