Tonight my wife, Pat, and I attended a performance of the rock musical Next to Normal at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Simply said it is a story about a “mother who struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effect that her illness has on her family.” But it is so much more. It is a powerful commentary on a disease one of four people experience and touches all of us. The music touches our very being and wakes up to a true understanding of this incurable disease. People with this brain disease need treatment and support of love ones but must learn, along with family and friends, that being “next to normal” is okay. The song ends with a song of how we all need the light.

The musical was two and half hours long but the emotion and feelings were timeless and made the play go by quickly. I thought I had come to terms with the suicide of my son Peter who had suffered greatly with this disease, but the words and music dug up feelings I had suppressed and they expressed so much of what I had learned about this disease of the mind. I could identify with the wife who had bipolar, her husband, the faithful caregiver and the daughter who struggled with life.

We got to the play because I was listening to public radio as I normally do when I am in the car driving. Some actors and the director from the production were on regular talk show originating here in Milwaukee. A musical about person with a mental illness and her family sounded interesting and not so normal. When we got there it was rock musical that made you laugh and cry and face the darkness of this disease yet see the light.

It left me realizing that my other son, my wife and I, like many others will need to live in the space of “Next to Normal”.

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