"In that moment, our lives were turned upside down."

By LUCY ORMONDE

You can’t even imagine it.

Losing both parents in the space of one year – let alone losing them in one day in two separate events.

But that’s exactly what happened to Tommy Fleming.

Tommy Fleming is one of Ireland’s best-known singers. He’s known for his traditional Irish music and powerful ballads. And he was on tour in March last year when he first received the call that would change everything.

It was his wife Tina.

“I knew immediately from her tone of voice that something was wrong,” Tommy writes in the last chapter of his autobiography, which is aptly titled Where to Begin?

“She proceeded to calmly explain that Mam had suffered a stroke, but not to panic as she would be okay!”

But how can you not panic? Tommy decided to stay in the UK where he was touring, putting on a brave face every night when he went on stage to perform for the thousands of people who had come to see him.

But when his Mam went downhill only a little while later, he made the urgent trip home to Ireland to be by her side.

“I arrived back in Ireland the next morning. My brother-in-law, Mort, collected me from the airport and drove me to the hospital where my Mam was being cared for. I spent a couple of days with Mam, visiting her in the hospital. Her condition was stable but critical.”

Tommy returned to his tour. Everything seemed to be okay. But then the second call came – another call that would rock his world – and this one wasn’t about his Mam.

Tommy’s sister called to tell him his father Paddy had admitted to hospital with heart failure and that Tommy should return to Ireland as soon as possible.

It’s funny how life can change in the blink of an eye. It was only weeks earlier that Tommy was touring the UK and singing for thousands of fans. And now he was faced with the scary reality of having two seriously ill parents.

Tommy’s mother and father were both in the same hospital; his Mam had not spoken a word since she suffered the stroke, but his Da’s condition was less serious. Tommy spent the next days sitting with each of them “secretly hoping and praying that everything would turn out alright…”

But that wasn’t to be.

Tommy’s Mam Annie passed away peacefully surrounded by her family on March 30, 2012.

Tommy and his five siblings struggled with what had just happened to their family. Mother’s Day would never be the same. The family would never sit around the dinner table together again. There would always be something missing when Tommy went to visit the family home.

“I didn’t know it was physically possible to have such an ache in your heart, but it is! My heart bled for the loss of our dear Mam. It’s a pain I’ll never be able to describe.”

Tommy and his family were preparing for their mother’s funeral, when their lives got worse. On the same day they lost their mother, they received a call to say their father had also passed away in hospital.

“None of us could comprehend what was happening!” Tommy writes in his book. “In that moment, our lives were turned upside down. We had now lost the two most precious people in our lives, our Mam and Dad.”

Tommy says he takes comfort in the knowledge that – after 50 years of marriage – his parents had each other. But that he was all her could take from the incredible events… events he’s still struggling to come to terms with more than a year later.

“I’m now in the lonely position of feeling my own way in life without having my parents to bounce ideas off, or having the security of going home and just knowing they are there,” Tommy writes. “I suppose I was blessed to have had them in my life for forty one years but I still feel cheated, and I think I am way too young to have lost them both.”

Now he’s looking towards the next chapter of his life.

Tommy Fleming has been described as the voice of Ireland. He is touring Australia in May to celebrate the release of his new album, Begin, out now. Click here for more information on his album. You can buy tickets to see Tommy Fleming perform live here.
Thanks to Universal Music, we have 10 albums to give away, Begin the new album by Tommy Fleming.  For your chance to win, tell us in 25 words or less: Who will you be thinking about this Mother’s Day and why.

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Have you lost a parent? How do you handle Mother’s Day or Father’s Day without them?