Mom’s Impromptu Singing at Hospital Unexpectedly Raises Awareness about Son’s Illness

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It was natural for a mom in South Carolina who loves singing and playing the piano to be attracted to a piano sitting at the hospital when she took her son for a doctor’s appointment. However, she didn’t expect that her impromptu performance would lead her to raise awareness of her son’s condition.

In April 2018, Abigail Tanner, a mother of three, from Pendleton, took her 1-year-old son, Lincoln, to the Duke Cancer Institute in South Carolina for an appointment with a neurology specialist.

At the hospital, Tanner spotted a piano and decided to play and sing “Never Enough” from the film “The Greatest Showman.”

“I just love that song,” she told Inside Edition. “There’s a lot of joy in it. There’s hope out there.”

“Music just communicates things that words can’t,” Tanner told WYFF.

“It just heals my heart to be able to play and sing.”

Tanner had only wanted to perform for Lincoln, so she didn’t expect to receive nationwide attention for her impromptu performance after a clip showing her singing was uploaded to the hospital’s Facebook page.

“You know, it was just a moment between he and I, and it wasn’t until we looked up and we saw a bunch of people clapping afterwards—really enjoying it—that we knew anybody else was even there,” Tanner said.

Lincoln was diagnosed with malignant migrating partial seizures of infancy, a terminal form of epilepsy that caused the young boy to suffer from seizures.

“At one point, he was having over 200 seizures a day, and we’ve got them down to 20–30 on a good day,” Tanner said.

As Lincoln couldn’t talk and has vision problems, Tanner has turned to using music to communicate with him, she told PEOPLE.

“For me, I go play any chance I get because it helps me to process what’s going on and also always just gives me a chance to sing to him or encourage others,” she said. “I always get to hear somebody else’s story from sitting at that piano, and that’s always a blessing to me.”

Having gained much attention after the video went viral, Tanner is using this chance to raise awareness on Lincoln’s illness, which she documented on the Facebook page “Lincoln’s Road,” where she has received lots of support.

“Some people have been so sweet we’ve had some ladies reach out and say you just got yourself a new prayer warrior,” she told Fox Carolina.

Watch Tanner’s performance in the video below: