The third day of Christmas and three more songs to savour, and to add to the transplant playlist. They are the gift from Lucy and Ben, the mum and dad of Charlie, a young boy who needed a transplant when he was only a few months old. He’s a young teenager now, and packed full of music and dance himself.
As well as the music, their words are also a gift, an honest and vulnerable insight into some of the most intimate moments of a family on a transplant journey. Listen to the music, add them to the playlist. Sit with them for a while and remember that behind the music, someone said yes to organ donation.
“Music is just the best thing to make someone happy, or to make somebody sad, and I think that’s amazing. Music really is quite poignant in our journey… There’s two songs specifically, for me. There’s one that I used to sing him when he was in his cot, waiting for him to wake up, needing feeding, or nappy changing, while we were in hospital. I’d sing it to him then and I still can’t listen to it 14 years later, which is Make you feel my love, by Adele. I sang it just like Adele, obviously…
There’s one particular verse…just looked it up and it makes me a bit emotional.
I know you haven’t made your mind up yet.
But I would never do you wrong.
I’ve known it from the moment that we met.
No doubt in my mind where you belong.
Then, a lovely one was when we were in Intensive Care, post-transplant, and I asked for music because I listened to a lot of music while I was pregnant and he used to wiggle around and he loved music and still does now, so I asked one of the nurses to put the radio on in our little room, and the first song that came on was I can see clearly now, the rain has gone, (Johnny Nash) and I just remembered standing over his cot…and, yes…it’s a really good song. That was a really happy song and I have it printed up in a picture on my wall. It’s a happy song.
Ben’s song is Three little birds, (Bob Marley) because he likes the message that it gives. It’s a little bit more chirpier than mine, and obviously we’ve got very much of a reggae theme in our house, unknowingly, but he likes that song because, well obviously, we’re like three little birds…
Music is such a powerful gift, and I believe that those songs were gifted to us in those moments to send us a message of hope. Who knows if that’s the case, or if it was just coincidence, but either way, they are mighty powerful and will remain in my heart always…”
