Our Margaret may have lost her
ability to move around with the spriteliness of yore and while her place of
residence has gone from 8 Down Street, Esk to up in room 204 at a delightful
new Home for the Aged in Orwell St Camp Hill, it is Margaret’s love of music
and that for her choir which has never changed.
Nor has her ability to recall so many of the moments which have become
the storybook of her life.
Where once her Down Street
shelves were brimming with trinkets along with treats for the choir members who
would come for extra practices, her shelves are now an accumulation of
keepsakes and kodak moments from her years as accompanist with the Choir. Even now, downstairs in CPSM Care’s Recreation
Room, Margaret’s own piano is a treasured showpiece.
It was with a heavy heart that
after more than 12 years of her sublime accompaniments at the Choir’s Annual
Christmas Concerts, Margaret’s circumstances prevented her being at this year’s
concert in Esk. Ergo, if you can’t take
the lady to the concert, you take the concert to the lady and on December 8th
it was carloads of Choristers from Esk and surrounds who were thrilled to hit
the highway and bring to Margaret their Christmas Concert repertoire along with
many of Margaret’s concert favourites.
Taking ‘centre stage’ and surrounded by Christmas gifts, her doting
family members, carers, and the capacity audience who filled the room, Margaret
was completely (in her own words) “overwhelmed by it all...close to tears much
of the time”! An occasional furtive
glance in Margaret’s direction would often catch those once dexterous fingers
air playing on the imaginary keyboard…muscle memory, well intact!
It was such a joy to have been
able to give this gift of song to Margaret who, right up until she couldn’t,
was so intent on giving her all and so much more to her choir. It is so true that the sum of a person’s life
is not how or where one ends up but in the details that happened along the
way. From your ‘choir family’ to whom
you have always been an inspiration Margaret, we give our love and thanks.
By: Sue Walker
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