Do The Mad Thing

or How To Find Happy With Help From Sir Tom Jones

It’s been busy.

You’ve probably seen the video of Mom by now on The Voice UK.

Crushing Rapper’s Delight… or singing harmonies with Will.i.Am on I Gotta Feeling.

If you haven’t, here is a link to her Instagram: thatsbette

I alluded to this whole thing back in a post at the end of February.

As I mention in that post, life can turn on a dime… and sometimes for the best.

When you watch that clip of my Mom having the time of her life rapping in front of a studio audience on a huge flashy TV show stage while LeAnn Rimes clapped along, Sir Tom Jones whistled approval, Will.i.Am’s smile beamed, and Danny Jones and Tom Fletcher (McFly) had their curiosity piqued to new levels, know this…

Four weeks to the day before that was filmed my Mom, myself and my sister were sitting in my Dad’s hospital room watching his life evaporate with every laboured, slowing breath.

We knew about The Voice UK at that time but it seemed as real as “maybe Dad will make a full recovery”.
It seemed an impossible notion.

We talked about not doing The Voice UK.
Mom quickly kiboshed that idea.
Dad would demand that we follow through.
I agreed.
So we did.

It was madness.

On each flight to the UK with my Mom (timed luckily with the UK release of my book and some meetings) I would turn to her mid-flight and say, “this is madness.”

I would say it not in a worried way but rather in a hopeful way.
In a way that summarized the bananagramness of life.
Life is crazy.
Life makes no sense.
Life arrives with no promise of meaning… that’s up to us.

I don’t want to overstate the TV show experience too much or suggest it was magical.
Everyone we encountered as part of it was wonderful but it’s just a TV show.

However it was one more example in my life of how sometimes choosing to do the nonsensical can make the most sense.

When my Dad was admitted to hospital at the beginning of this year, my Mom was burnt out to such a degree that we started actively looking for care homes for her to go to.
I don’t even know if she knows that.
She was ashen, joyless, and under a massive debt of fatigue and sadness that had suddenly come to collect.

I feel this is a common occurrence for family caregivers.
It seems noble to put yourself last initially, and it kind of is, but it is quickly revealed as the perfect way to do nothing except double the suffering.
And yes, easier said than done but it warrants trying to be aware of that.

I thought I was going to lose both parents in January.
Losing my Dad was awful but inevitable.
Losing my Mom seemed to be being allowed to happen… until it wasn’t.

When I watch the footage of my Mom on stage, I see tremendous painful joy in her eyes.
Life had taken away her partner and with him half of her identity.
Then it just dropped a ton of happiness on her.

She may not be whole again yet, but she will be.
All thanks to Danny, Tom, LeAnn, Will, and Sir Tom.

Do the mad thing.
It might be great.

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(Pictured: Author and his mother pose with crew of shoot for The Voice UK who are all far too young and cheery)