Ian Lara: Comedy Gave Me the Strength to Overcome My Mother's Death

Ian Lara is a Dominican American stand-up comedian from Queens, NY, who found internet success after his appearance on "Comedy Central Stand-Up Featuring," which has garnered over 10 million views. Lara was a regular on "This Week at the Comedy Cellar" on Comedy Central and was featured in "Bring the Funny" on NBC. He made his late-night television debut on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in 2019, and in 2020, Lara performed his first 30-minute special for HBO Latino's "Entre Nos: LA Meets NY." In 2022, Lara's half-hour special on Comedy Central, "Growing Shame," aired in February, and his HBO special, "Ian Lara: Romantic Comedy," was released in November on HBO Max. For Mental Health Awareness Month, we asked Latine comedians and creators we admire how comedy has supported them in overcoming trauma and confronting life's most significant challenges. Read the pieces here. "El que anda corriendo llega cansado." That's a famous Dominican saying my mother always used to say, which translates to, "He who runs arrives tired." These six simple words have guided my life and career as a stand-up comedian in many ways. This phrase alone taught me the importance of discipline, dedication, and doing things right - however long and hard the road is. It's not lost on me how much of an influence my mom had on my career. For starters, she was probably one of the funniest individuals I knew. I had a relatively happy and healthy upbringing. I grew up in South Ozone Park, Queens, as the youngest of five, and I don't recall a day that wasn't filled with jokes and laughter. From my parents to my older siblings, someone always said something witty that had us all rolling. But often, it was my mom that provoked the big belly laughs. In many ways, my mom was the one who helped me appreciate the importance of comedic relief and how it can help us cope with some of the grim realities of life. I didn't know it then, but growing up in a funny Dominican family prepared me for the life ahead of me. When you're growing up, you just assume that's the norm for everyone - until you go out into the world and see that it's different for different people. But in my family, humor was everything. Everyone was funny. My uncles were funny. My aunts were funny, and my mom was always very funny. In fact, it wasn't until I started pursuing a career in comedy that I realized there was this narrative within mainstream American comedy that women comics "weren't funny." I never heard anything like that growing up. I didn't even know that was a thing because in my culture and in my family, everyone was funny - especially the women. Being the youngest, I didn't even realize I was funny until I was in junior high school, and my friends and peers would point it out to me. As I got older, I became a fan of stand-up and realized maybe it was a thing I wanted to do. At first, I thought I would just do this as a hobby and pursue a career as a lawyer. But one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was booking spots at comedy clubs throughout the week. There was something about providing comedic relief for individuals regardless of what they might be going through in their daily lives that really appealed to me. As cliché as it may sound, laughter really is the best medicine, and what I'd soon learn is that it's not just medicine for those receiving it but also for the individual - in my case, as the comedian - making the jokes. Everything I grew up learning from my mom, from the importance of not taking shortcuts in life to the balance levity can bring, all prepared me for one of the hardest and darkest moments I would experience - losing her to cancer. My mom's battle with cancer felt in many ways like an emotional rollercoaster of sorts. I first learned of her breast cancer diagnosis in May 2021, literally the day after Mother's Day. I remember when she called me two weeks prior to tell me she had gone to the doctor, and they ran some tests. She did a mammogram, and the doctor saw something in her breasts, so he sent it out to the lab to see if it was cancer. On Mother's Day, my mom was in Pennsylvania with my sister, and I drove out there to spend the day with her. The following day, she called to tell me that the doctor said the breast tissue came back cancerous. But initially, I wasn't worried. My mom used to get mammograms pretty frequently. In fact, the only year she missed was 2020, when we were all on lockdown because of COVID. So, I was pretty sure that the cancer was likely in the early stages and still treatable. Anytime you hear about a cancer diagnosis, it's never a good thing, but I did my research, and she was still only in stage one. Plus, I had an aunt who had previously been diagnosed with breast cancer, and they caught it and treated it during stage three. So, I stayed hopeful. Things took a turn for the worse when we learned in July that my mom also had stage four colon cancer that was spreading to her liver. When you le