Be Happy And Shine

Yesterday I published a story of an amazing singer who calls herself Nightbirde (real name Jane Marczewski). Later on I decided to dig in a little deeper. I was curious to know how somebody who is just thirty years of age, who has had cancer three times and been given just a two percent chance of survival, who still has cancer in three parts of her fragile body and to top it all was abandoned by her husband in the midst of her worst hours, what on earth has this woman got that has enabled her to reign victorious on America's Got Talent?

I guess guts comes in a great many guises. Blood, sweat and tears is the normal adornment of guts. Yet many times we have seen guts wearing some other unexpected attire. In Jane's case, guts was dressed in a black short sleeved top, a pair of distressed jeans and a pair of short boots. Physically she looked vulnerably thin with short cropped dark hair, and yet in the simplicity of her attire she was elegant all the same. She stood there emotionally naked for all to hear of her battle with cancer.

Her beautiful voice soothed out of her tender frame in such a gentle, engaging fashion as it defied the ugliness of her deadly disease as if to say "Hey cancer, you're killing me inside, but you cannot kill my spirit, you cannot quell the voice that I have, you cannot destroy the positive thoughts in my mind, you can consume my body, wracked in pain as it is, but you cannot consume my spirit.I'm done with you winning. Now, it's my turn to win. For these sweet moments, under the lights on a global stage for all the world to see, I am going to be victorious."

If you check out Jane's blog you will get some insight into some of her worst moments, on the floor with her latest medical report coldly stating the bad news about the spread of her cancer. Here is a piece from Jane's blog detailing her journey of desperation.

"After the doctor told me I was dying, and after the man I married said he didn’t love me anymore, I chased a miracle in California and sixteen weeks later, I got it. The cancer was gone. But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke. I later found out that all the tragedy at once had caused a physical head trauma, and my brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic.

I spent three months propped against the wall. On nights that I could not sleep, I laid in the tub like an insect, staring at my reflection in the shower knob. I vomited until I was hollow. I rolled up under my robe on the tile. The bathroom floor became my place to hide, where I could scream and be ugly; where I could sob and spit and eventually doze off, happy to be asleep, even with my head on the toilet."

To read this is to get down on that bathroom floor with Jane, to feel a little of her excruciating pain at her lowest ebb. The question is, how on earth did she get through it to the point of stealing everybody's hearts on America's Got Talent'?

Jane writes so eloquently of her relationship with her condition But there is something else at play here, something deeply personal and fearsome. And I know its name. The subconscious will to live.

Almost forty years ago, in my final year at university, due to stress, I developed a very nasty duodenal ulcer. The pain was indescribable. It came in waves and felt like somebody had cut me with a knife and had poured acid into the wound. In fact, that is pretty much what it is. An ulcer is a wound to the stomach lining which stomach acid flows over and into. I would not wish it on my biggest enemy.

I too, just like Jane, scrunched up under the cover of bed linen and just wished that I could die. I cried out for release, whatever it took. I was just thirty years of age, the same as Jane, and I was quite prepared to die. And since it was a perforated ulcer that killed my maternal grandfather, there was every possibility that my wish would come true. But it didn't. With my own subconscious will power I survived and lived to tell the tale some thirty seven years later.

I do believe in the power of the subconscious will. It is something which is not to be underestimated. I had it, and Jane has got it by the bucket load. Whatever that powerful life force is, if you have got it, and I do believe each and every one of us has it, it can save your life.

Many years later, in quieter moments I felt inspired to write a song based upon that experience, plus more than one or two more life setbacks.

"Take off your sad face, put on your smile. Forever and forever, be happy for a while.

This life’s a hard life, this life’s a short life, take hold of the moment, be happy and shine.

Take all those bad things, all those crazy mad things, tearful, mournful sad things, put them all behind you, don’t let them blind you, let them remind you….

The life light is in your eyes and your eyes shine a light. Your life light is in your mind, let all your dreams take flight. Take hold of the moment, be happy and shine."

And now, as I sit calmly by the open patio door on a beautiful Spring morning, a gentle breeze wafting through the mosquito screen and caressing my brow, I find it hard to believe half of what I have passed through. It is as if it was somebody else all that bad stuff happened to. And I hope that Nightbirde Jane reaches the same point in her life when she too can calmly sit where she has never sat before, at some other window with a different view. I hope she can taste the joy of a new Spring and a life full of wonderful things. And as I ponder upon all of this I am remembering one of the first songs I ever wrote.

"Life is for living', don't ever give in, learn to take the bumpy ride.

It isn't easy, please believe me.You will come out the other side."