Niecy Nash has the uncanny ability to make her audience laugh and forget about their worries and in a recent interview with Closer Weekly, the actress-comedian reveals who her first patient was on the road comedy — her own mother. When Nash found her mother after she’d been shot by a boyfriend in 1985, both were able to survive the ordeal. But when Nash’s brother was killed eight years later, her mother wasn’t able to move on.
“When my brother was killed, my mother was in a severe depression, and one day before my 23rd birthday, I was at a loss and didn’t know what to do. What I did know was I had the ability to make my mother laugh,” Nash said.
So Nash tapped into what she did best in order to pull her mother out of her grief and found her life’s passion in the process.
“She went from lying in the bed to sitting up in the bed. Then one day I came in to do my act and she wasn’t in bed. Turns out she was in the living room and invited the neighbors to see me do stand-up. That is when I knew I had a gift to do comedy. I decided I was going to go out and spread this around as a means to help the other people who are suffering,” she said.
Nash, who also went through a divorce after being married for 16 years, shared the role that comedy and laughter has played in helping her dust off life’s obstacles no matter how daunting they may seem.
“All of this rough road I have traveled I may not be able to change, but I can decide how I am going to get up and face today,” Nash said. “I choose happiness.”
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