Sing was taken at a time of sadness. Four days after the MRI. It was May 2008.
Incurable. An awful word. I like to approach problems with solutions. And we had been just given the worst news I will ever hear. Incurable. And we were given the news in a time when this was supposed to be over. A routine follow-up MRI. Nine days after Bounce. Eight days after our whole family had a Finntastic time at a Dan Zanes concert. A time of incredible happiness and lightness. And out of the blue one word absolutely shatters us into a million pieces. But it was not the word by itself.
We were no longer the same people we had been when Finn was diagnosed. We could say Rhabdomyosarcoma without stumbling over the word. We knew children who had had metastatic disease. Shared a room with them. Talked to some of them about Supertramp. Read their obituaries. No it was not the word incurable by itself. It was the hard earned knowledge that informed that word.
Incurable shattered us.
But Sing is not about that. Sing is about singing despite that.
If you look at the picture you will see none of the weight of the words in the paragraph above. You will see three kids having an amazingly good time. Baird my drummer, Sarah my feral dancer and Finn on guitar. Dancing and singing to Dan Zanes.
Sing helped lift the weight and propel us forward. Sing helped us put the shattered pieces back into a place of sorts. Not in the same way, never in the same way, but still together.
Because in a time of immense sadness, Sam and I hitched ourselves to a five year old and two two year olds and kept going forward.
They ran, so we did.
They jumped, so we did.
They bounced, so we did.
They danced, so we did.
They sang, so we did.
They loved, so we did.
They smiled, so we did.
They rode, so we must.
And for those of you new to Team Finn, you should know that Team Finn sings. We sing a lot actually. In year one we sang”tunnel” as we went through tunnels and laughed our heads off. We/I sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water” any time we crossed a bridge. Doreen who rode at or near the back of the Ride in 2009, passed her time by singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. You see it was the only song she knew all the words to, so she sang it. And for those of you who know my December 1st rule (no Christmas including songs before December 1st), Doreen’s song doesn’t break that rule.
I have promised before that those who join this Team will get to experience the best kind of happy and the best kind of sad. Sing is not about the best kind of sad, but it is about the best kind of happy.
So be prepared to sing, sing badly if you must. And don’t worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear, just sing, sing a song.