The curative power of laughter

OPINION:

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, I received an unexpected call from Joe Sibilia, who produces the morning radio show for former “Saturday Night Live” comedian and movie star Joe Piscopo. Having grown up watching Mr. Piscopo on the big screen and being still able to recite his most iconic lines from one of my favorite movies, “Johnny Dangerously,” I was thrilled to join him on the air waves.

Just about every other week since then, I have been able to count on a text from Mr. Sibilia inviting me back.

Our eight-to-10 minute early morning conversations on the radio are about evenly divided between analyzing the latest wickedly complex threats to U.S. national security and sharing stories about raising our kids as single dads. Although he’s the supremely funny entertainer and I’m supposed to be the serious retired CIA officer who spent years, as Mr. Piscopo says, “dueling it out with the KGB,” it’s Mr. Piscopo who has a way of bringing out my best sense of humor. (It’s usually related to some tomfoolery in which my kids had engaged that week.)

When I join Mr. Piscopo’s radio program, I feel like I’ve been transported to an Italian family reunion, where conversation flows seamlessly with good humor and insight, from one intriguing topic to the next, all while Mr. Piscopo’s favorite Frank Sinatra music plays in the background.

My wife, Kim, passed away from cancer just a few months before I first joined Mr. Piscopo on the radio. Knowing I had to take care of my young sons and get them off to school in the mornings, Mr. Sibilia regularly makes all sorts of incredibly flexible accommodations
to suit my busy schedule. 

Expressing great sympathy for my family’s loss, Mr. Sibilia and Mr. Piscopo routinely ask about my sons with genuine concern about their well-being.

And a few years back, when we held a fundraiser event at the Spyscape museum in Manhattan for the Jessie Rees Foundation, which supports kids in the fight for their lives against pediatric cancer, Mr. Piscopo was there to meet and greet all of the guests and pose for pictures with them. He could have been a lot of other places that evening, but he chose to help make our evening more impactful by honoring my late wife and those courageous kids.

Before being stricken with brain cancer at age 11, Jessie Rees was a junior Olympic swimmer. During the year she battled cancer before passing away more than a decade ago, she created “Joy Jars,” which she filled with toys and gifts to brighten the days of other children fighting cancer. Jessie’s dad, Erik, created the Jessie Rees Foundation and honors her memory by holding mobile Joy Jar events across the country and distributing hundreds of thousands of Joy Jars to pediatric cancer patients all over the world.

My sons and I will forever be grateful to Jessie Rees for showing us the path to philanthropy, which brings us so much comfort.

Last week, Mr. Sibilia sent me a text asking me if I were available to join the program. He apologized for not answering a previous text of mine, but explained that he had been visiting his 9-year-old cousin, who, like Jessie Rees, has terminal brain cancer.

When our kids get sick or hurt, we parents know that it’s our sacred duty to nurse them back to health. But terminal cancer is so arbitrarily insidious precisely because it denies moms and dads their God-given responsibility to heal their children.

The first time I met Erik Rees was in our home, on the eve of a mobile Joy Jar event back in October 2022, for which my older son raised enough money to stuff 3,000 Joy Jars. Erik told me that he missed his daughter every day, but that Jessie would be super proud of how the foundation was carrying on her legacy.

I gave him a hug and told him parents are not supposed to outlive their children.

My heart breaks for Mr. Sibilia and his family. My sons and I are sending them strength and our prayers.

• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. He can be reached at danielhoffman@yahoo.com.