After her transplants, Lucia worked as hard as she could to get back to the dance floor.\u00a0 Any dance floor – our front room, a disco, the local night club, parties, gala dinners and, above all, the Transplant Games.\u00a0 She lived with a soundtrack in her head, making playlists with lyrics\u00a0that were almost “notes to self” – and playlists for others, for parties, birthdays, the gym.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cDancing is, like, my thing.\u00a0 Even before I had any kind of (illness)\u2026I think I was always a very bubbly, bubbly person but it\u2019s made it, multiplied it, like a million times over!\u00a0 If I hear a song I like, I just\u2026I will not sit down\u2026\u00a0 And then you try and get other people up, and it kind of becomes infectious…”\u00a0 <\/em>It did.\u00a0 Galway Girl<\/strong>, either\u00a0song, by\u00a0Steve Earle and Sharon Shannon<\/strong>, or Ed Sheeran<\/strong>.\u00a0 Belle of Belfast (Tell me Ma), by Sham Rock.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Run the world (Girls), Beyonce, <\/strong>and so much more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Slowly recovering in hospital after her second transplant, for a while Lucia was particularly withdrawn and silent.\u00a0 We asked what music she might like to hear.\u00a0 She dug deep and suggested a track we had to hunt for.\u00a0 When we eventually found the\u00a0CD Lucia was after, there were smiles in the room again as she started to listen, and move, to\u00a0Amenitendeya, by the Mwamba Rock Choir<\/strong>.\u00a0 This Ugandan Children’s Choir had performed in\u00a0her school and Lucia\u00a0revisited the exuberance of the young African girl who had embodied joy and gratitude in\u00a0her widest of smiles and boundless energy.\u00a0“My hands nearly dropped off I clapped so much.\u00a0 Nobody wanted them to stop,” <\/em>Lucia said.\u00a0 “Mrs McBride let us put the CD on in the class while we worked.\u00a0 We all sang along with it.\u00a0 She knew it would help us do our work.\u00a0 It made us happy.”<\/em><\/p>\n One morning, a letter arrived for Lucia.\u00a0 She\u2019d been chosen for the GB\/NI Transplant team to compete in the World Transplant Games, in Sweden, 2011.\u00a0 Her delight flowed as she sat on her own at our piano and played and played, no music in front of her, improvising\u00a0out of sheer joy.\u00a0 Untrained\u00a0though she was, the sound caught our attention that evening, and we caught\u00a0half an hour\u00a0of it on tape.\u00a0 Years later, her friend and former music teacher “tidied it up a little” for ears more delicate than her family\u2019s as we prepared a celebration of Lucia’s life.\u00a0 A beautiful expression of Lucia’s joy at belonging to the team, and the “transplant family”.\u00a0\u00a0We can’t include it in this blog, so you’ll just have to imagine.<\/p>\n On that same tape was an earlier recording of a younger Lucia, singing at the top of her voice – in the bath.\u00a0 Lines from two songs, over and over, with great, uninhibited enjoyment.\u00a0\u00a0 The first is I will always love you, by Dolly Parton<\/strong>. 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.\u00a0 I will.\u00a0 Always.\u00a0 Always.”\u00a0 Then her singing started again, with renewed energy and abandon: The Beatles, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on..<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sixth day of Christmas.\u00a0 This\u00a0morning 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.\u00a0 Our wait that day in ITU was filled, not with music, but gentle conversation,\u00a0unspoken thoughts.\u00a0 A nurse helped as Lucia’s mum, and sister, washed, dried, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-news-and-events","category-personal-story","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phtpid-pm","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1665,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/1665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lucia](\"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Lucia-at-Christmas-Just-dance-2-218x300.jpeg\")
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