Sixth day of Christmas. This morning five years ago, the transplant coordinator gave us news that a liver was available for transplant, tests being done to determine its suitability for Lucia. Our wait that day in ITU was filled, not with music, but gentle conversation, unspoken thoughts. A nurse helped as Lucia’s mum, and sister, washed, dried, and plaited Lucia’s long hair. Eight hours later it was confirmed. As the light had faded for another family, their courage and kindness became a gift of light for us.
There was always music for Lucia, even in hospitals where much was enjoyed by her nurses, sparking conversations and exchanging songs. A “Sleepy” playlist helped to distract, and nights to pass. Stay Awake, by Julie Andrews, Piece by piece, by Katia Melua, and Sweet Silver Lining, by Kate Voegele, and her acoustic version of It’s only life. There was music post-transplant, too, Lucia working hard with her physio team to her own chosen song, This girl is on fire, by Alicia Keys.
After her transplants, Lucia worked as hard as she could to get back to the dance floor. Any dance floor – our front room, a disco, the local night club, parties, gala dinners and, above all, the Transplant Games. She lived with a soundtrack in her head, making playlists with lyrics that were almost “notes to self” – and playlists for others, for parties, birthdays, the gym. “Dancing is, like, my thing. Even before I had any kind of (illness)…I think I was always a very bubbly, bubbly person but it’s made it, multiplied it, like a million times over! If I hear a song I like, I just…I will not sit down… And then you try and get other people up, and it kind of becomes infectious…” It did. Galway Girl, either song, by Steve Earle and Sharon Shannon, or Ed Sheeran. Belle of Belfast (Tell me Ma), by Sham Rock. Run the world (Girls), Beyonce, and so much more.
Slowly recovering in hospital after her second transplant, for a while Lucia was particularly withdrawn and silent. We asked what music she might like to hear. She dug deep and suggested a track we had to hunt for. When we eventually found the CD Lucia was after, there were smiles in the room again as she started to listen, and move, to Amenitendeya, by the Mwamba Rock Choir. This Ugandan Children’s Choir had performed in her school and Lucia revisited the exuberance of the young African girl who had embodied joy and gratitude in her widest of smiles and boundless energy. “My hands nearly dropped off I clapped so much. Nobody wanted them to stop,” Lucia said. “Mrs McBride let us put the CD on in the class while we worked. We all sang along with it. She knew it would help us do our work. It made us happy.”
One morning, a letter arrived for Lucia. She’d been chosen for the GB/NI Transplant team to compete in the World Transplant Games, in Sweden, 2011. Her delight flowed as she sat on her own at our piano and played and played, no music in front of her, improvising out of sheer joy. Untrained though she was, the sound caught our attention that evening, and we caught half an hour of it on tape. Years later, her friend and former music teacher “tidied it up a little” for ears more delicate than her family’s as we prepared a celebration of Lucia’s life. A beautiful expression of Lucia’s joy at belonging to the team, and the “transplant family”. We can’t include it in this blog, so you’ll just have to imagine.
On that same tape was an earlier recording of a younger Lucia, singing at the top of her voice – in the bath. Lines from two songs, over and over, with great, uninhibited enjoyment. The first is I will always love you, by Dolly Parton. Then a momentary pause in Lucia’s singing and, in her best attempt at a Dublin accent (don’t ask), “I will always love you. I will. Always. Always.” Then her singing started again, with renewed energy and abandon: The Beatles, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on...
