Forgive Anastasia Manchester for having a darker sense of humor. She’s endured more tragedy than most her age.

Or maybe don’t. She’ll laugh about it anyway.

The Butler girls wrestling junior has built a unique mental fortitude over a young lifetime that’s had her experience the death of her father, her childhood home burning down two years later and now, her grandfather’s brain cancer diagnosis.

That’s enough to break most teenagers. Not Manchester.

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“We could laugh or cry, and crying takes too much energy,” her mother, Christine Manchester, said.

Anastasia chooses to laugh ... mostly.

December is her least favorite month.

It’s when her dad, Robert, died in 2015, unexpectedly at age 32. Two years later, the Manchester’s home burned down in an electrical fire. And it was two months ago when her grandfather, Rodney Rhodaberger, was diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma. Doctors said the life expectancy is two years.

Rhodaberger unwittingly set Anastasia on her path to becoming one of the area’s top wrestlers. Older brother Byron, who wrestled for Butler, also inspired her love for wrestling.

Christine said she was watching a 4-year-old Anastasia wrestling Robert in the living room one night when Anastasia took the lid off a tote and smacked Robert in the head with it.

Christine had no idea where her little girl got the idea and called Rhodaberger to tell the tale.

“And he goes, ‘Well, this might be the right time to tell you we might watch WWE together,’” Christine said. “I’m like, ‘Dad, I’m gonna kill you. She’s 4!’”

Rhodaberger, who beat a different type of cancer before, is perhaps Anastasia’s biggest cheerleader.

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When a shoulder injury a year ago prevented Anastasia from competing in the postseason, where she expected to make states, “He was super bummed out,” Christine said.

Rhodaberger started radiation and chemotherapy treatments a few weeks ago. He had surgery shortly after his diagnosis to try to slow the tumor’s growth.

He’s unable to attend his granddaughter’s matches now and will have to watch the WPIAL championships, PIAA regionals and states via livestream.

But an exception was made so he could attend a home dual-meet against Hickory a few weeks ago — perhaps for the last time.

In a show of sportsmanship, Hickory’s Marissa Tanner agreed to wrestle up in weight so Anastasia, at 136 pounds, could get one more bout in front of her grandfather.

Anastasia pinned Tanner in the second period and ran over to hug her grandfather.

“I was the happiest I’ve ever been,” she said. “Everyone was crying, everyone was screaming.”

Anastasia was 7 when her dad died and 9 when she was staying at her aunt’s one night and the house burned down.

Christine said Robert loved their children — they had six together, including Destiny, Byron (who also wrestled), Anastasia, Isabell, Michael and Heidi. Christine is now engaged to Dale Hertweck, who has a son, Jordan. The couple also adopted or has legal guardianship of three siblings, Kameron and Bryson Hertweck, and Janaya Hogan.

Robert was “always wrestling on the floor or singing to them,” Christine said. He dealt with alcohol addiction, too.

“McDonald’s used to have a yogurt parfait and he would always buy them for us,” Anastasia said of her fondest memories with her dad.

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Almost exactly two years after he died, the house burned down. They were at Rhodaberger’s house on a Saturday night to shower before Sunday church the next morning because their shower wasn’t working. She got a call from a neighbor later that night that the house was on fire.

The Manchesters lost everything, including Robert’s ashes, other reminders of him and each kids’ “Daddy bear,” which were made from different shirts he used to wear. Only Anastasia’s, which had been left at a family member’s house, survived.

It was like losing Robert a second time, this time for good.

“I didn’t really know how to go about it,” Anastasia said. “There was a point where I couldn’t cry anymore.”

That’s why she cracks jokes. About her dead dad. About the house. About her dad’s ashes in the burned-down house. About almost anything.

Laughing and wrestling help her cope.

Oh, there’s still plenty of crying. Anastasia takes losses on the mat particularly hard. Her least favorite subject was pre-calculus and bad grades drew tears.

“I always wanna be the best I can be,” Anastasia said. “I take it really seriously.”

She calls her mom in those moments, sometimes from the locker room right after a loss. Christine is her daughter’s sounding board.

“I’ve always been able to calm them down,” she said. “I always just tell her, ‘Listen to my voice.’”

On the mat, Anastasia doesn’t listen. Her mind goes blank, she said. She doesn’t hear her coaches yelling instructions and sometimes moves she’s drilled for hours in practice go by the wayside in the moment.

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But that ability to compartmentalize is also why she’s mentally strong enough to handle the ups and downs of wrestling. At 63 wins, she’s 17 off the program’s career record, owned by Anna Malovich. Anastasia wants to break that mark.

“She's honestly one of (the most) unique people on this team,” Butler head coach Nathan Bottiger said. “Sometimes when you talk to her, she's either making jokes about tough situations or she's almost, like, scared. But then there’s times where she just walks out (on the mat) and you can just see everything sheds off of her in the moment.

“Honestly, that's a gift for someone like her to have.”

Not one that’s fair to have experienced in the ways she has, but one that she doesn’t shy away from.

“The fight that she has,” Christine said when asked what makes her proud of her daughter, adding, “She likes to help others, as well. Watching her help others and the little girls that are coming in and trying to teach them random, different moves. It’s an accomplishment for me.”

Anastasia’s grandfather is her driving force this postseason. Nothing else matters more than returning to Hershey for the first time since her freshman season so he can watch, even from a screen, one more time.

“I’m going all out for states,” she said.