Jamaican humour has remarkable timing.
Somebody can be telling you the worst thing that happened all year and halfway through the story everybody is laughing.
That does not automatically mean the pain was not serious.
Humour can create distance.
Connection.
Relief.
Defiance.
Sometimes it lets people touch something painful without being swallowed by it.
But laughter can also hide what nobody knows how to say.
The useful question is not:
“Why yuh joking if this serious?”
It may be:
“Mi laughing with yuh. But how yuh really handling it?”
There is room for both.