Cough: (v) to expel air from the lungs suddenly with a harsh noise

“Wow. That’s a nasty cough.”

People have said that to me over the years and I to them.

It’s really sad that “cough” has such a bad reputation. Nobody ever praises it for any of its rehabilitating qualities. Once we hear a cough, it remains nasty in our
minds until it’s gone.

Of course, the reason it arrives is to help us.

Without the cough, our bronchial tubes and lungs would fill up with mucous and suffocate us. Would we like that better? Probably not.

Seems like we’re really obsessed with being critical of the cough. It comes along to remind us—to tickle our awareness—that things inside us need to be expelled. Otherwise we will never get well.

Once a cough arrives, it really is not trying to make us sicker, but would like us to get better as soon as possible, offering its hack to help out with the whoop.

But still…

We hold the cough in low regard.

Maybe it’s because deep in our hearts, we think anything that happens to us which isn’t whipped cream and candy to possess some level of injustice.

When people get sick and die, we complain—and often turn bitterly to the heavens and say, “Why did God do that?”

No one ever thinks to pose the question to the King of the Universe, “Why didn’t you send a better cough?”

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