Gina Brillon: The Loss of My Grandmother Pushed Me to Pursue Comedy

Gina Brillon is a Puerto Rican actress, stand-up comic, author, and mother born and elevated in the Bronx. In 2012, she turned the very first and only Latina winner of NBC’s Stand Up for Diversity Showcase. She went on to release comedy specials on NuvoTV, HBO, and Amazon Primary. She has appeared on “The Look at,” “Late Evening With Seth Meyers,” and “Jimmy Kimmel Stay,” and was the 1st Latina comic to be a finalist in season 16 of “America’s Acquired Talent.”

For Psychological Health Recognition Thirty day period, we requested Latine comedians and creators we admire how comedy has supported them in overcoming trauma and confronting life’s most major issues. Browse the parts below.

We do not speak adequate about the healing powers of humor. The aged stating, “laughter is the ideal medication,” as cliché as it may possibly be, basically has a whole lot of truth to it. I discovered about the electricity of laughter at a reasonably younger age. In Latino families, we typically use humor to recover from traumas and hardships. It can help us get via so significantly. At property, we made jokes about all the things from the authorities, cheese we ate, to the broke, child game titles we played. I tremendously touched on this in my Amazon Primary specific, “The Flooring is Lava.”

My childhood was fantastic but arrived with its fair share of struggles. Dollars difficulties were being genuine, and I remember us being on foodstuff stamps at one particular point. We experienced our difficult periods, but we someway generally managed to obtain possibilities to laugh about it. It was a person of people, “if you really don’t chuckle, you will cry” kind circumstances. But it wasn’t right up until I missing my grandmother that I recognized the momentary relief a great giggle can convey, even in the experience of reduction and grief.

I say this all the time, but my grandmother is the full motive why I resolved to go after a job as a stand-up comedian. I was likely close to the age of 8 or 9 when I realized I experienced a present for generating people today giggle. It was also all around that age that it truly strike me how healing laughter could be. The moment I recognized I could make an individual giggle, it grew to become a mission to make people around me chuckle mainly because I cherished the joy I received out of it. My grandmother was the initially developed-up in the spouse and children who found I was funny. She would explain to my mother issues like, “Your daughter is gifted. She’s going to be on Television set one particular day,” and I little by little started to think her.

For a although, I saved the jokes for the family. I was this outrageous, funny kid at residence, but I was significantly much more reserved anytime I was in community. As a child, I was self-conscious for the reason that I was the chubby, funny lady. So, if I didn’t know you like that, I wouldn’t try to make you chuckle mainly because I was already way too insecure. In reality, friends and schoolmates who realized me expanding up were being astonished when I became a stand-up comedian. They always considered I was funny, but they also thought I was shy simply because I was escalating up. I was never ever the class clown. But I was the kid who was often fast with a joke. If I saw a joke someplace, I would say it promptly before everyone else could say it very first.

My grandma was almost certainly a single of the hardest ladies I’ve at any time achieved — to this day. This was my grandma on my maternal aspect. She lived with us and handed absent when I was 16, but a big chunk of my childhood was expended all-around this girl whom I absolutely adored. She came to New York from Puerto Rico and by no means actually uncovered English like that, but the English she managed to discover was from seeing “I Love Lucy.” That is when I started comprehending how significantly my grandma appreciated comedic reduction. Once I learned that, I produced it a position usually to crack her up.

My grandmother was not an effortless lady to make snicker. She was challenging, and she was major. She also hated pranks. But she loved silliness. A little something about silliness authorized her to soften and fully convey down her guard — no matter of what she was likely as a result of at the time. I begun to analyze her feeling of humor and offered her with the silliness I knew she loved. When my grandmother laughed, she laughed with her whole currently being. She exuded absolute pleasure — it introduced out another side of her that I appreciated at a young age. That grew to become our biggest way of connecting — generating her chortle.

But when I was all over 11, my grandmother’s wellness started to decline. She would get cuts and bruises randomly. She started off going through body aches much more often. I realized she wasn’t the similar when I started out noticing my mom experienced to shower her day by day. That was difficult for me because I grew up looking at this robust female who hardly ever preferred to be a burden locating herself in this kind of a vulnerable position. I pretty much did not know how to hook up with her any longer. My siblings were fast to enable in getting care of her bodily, but I was under no circumstances comfortable accomplishing that. It was tough for me to witness her at her weakest.

In the course of that time, I recognized that the ideal medicine I had to offer you her was laughter. On her toughest times, I manufactured confident to make her chortle, and she frequently encouraged me to make a job out of it a single day. My grandma was my first comedy audience and the very first particular person who seriously believed in me, so when she passed, I explained to God that I would go after a job in comedy.

I understood it was coming since I in no way heard the worry in this woman’s voice like that prior to. I bear in mind considering to myself, this is it. My mom explained to me to go to mattress, but I couldn’t. I questioned if I could go to the lavatory, and as soon as I walked in there, I opened the window, fell to my knees, and started to pray. I recall the initial words out of my mouth ended up, “God, I know tonight you are using my grandma.” I told God that from that minute on, any time I make anyone snicker, it would be in honor of my grandmother. And if I ever do something in comedy, it will normally be for her. The future early morning, she was absent.

It was a difficult year for my household — particularly my mom. It took a though prior to it felt correct, but I bit by bit commenced to use humor to assist myself and the rest of the loved ones get as a result of it. Even at the funeral, as complicated as it was, there were being very little moments wherever the family members would joke and roast every single other, and it was healing. We permitted ourselves to grieve and to cry. But we also located possibilities to chuckle and smile in memory of my grandmother.

To this working day, each individual single time I action on phase, I think of my grandmother. I literally really feel her electricity with me each and every time. I can experience her in the home watching me. I’m always like, “Did you see that, grandma? Did you see what I just did? Did you like it?”

Every milestone has been committed to her, from my initial 20-moment unique for HBO’s “Entre Nos” to when I did my first a person-hour specific “Pacifically Speaking,” my Amazon Prime particular “The Floor Is Lava,” to even when I was on “America’s Received Talent.” My sister, who is actually significant into the religious side of matters, normally tells me that my grandma is usually with me. I imagine that we all have a counsel of persons who are intended to glance after us in this existence, and I consider we select them. I selected my grandmother, and I chose George Carlin — my favorite comedian increasing up. I actually imagine he’s element of the souls viewing over me to the point exactly where just about every time I wander into Gotham Comedy Club, I give a salute to his picture.

Not only has comedy gotten me as a result of each individual hard circumstance I have seasoned in this daily life, from heartache to decline, but it has also assisted me find myself. It reworked a younger, insecure female into the most self-assured she has ever been. It gave me the means to link with individuals, the first 1 staying my grandmother. Comedy has authorized me to enable many others heal simply because of the way it has helped me recover in my own strategies. It is my longest romantic relationship in this life and my most cherished 1.

Johanna Ferreira is the information director for POPSUGAR Juntos. With extra than 10 years of encounter, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central part of Latine lifestyle. Previously, she invested close to a few a long time as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for several stores like Refinery29, O Magazine, Attract, InStyle, and Effectively+Excellent. She has also moderated and spoken on several panels on Latine identification.