A Legacy

IT'S so easy to get caught up in all the holiday hype. Even when you try to keep commercialism at bay, gifts, food and house preparation and trying to make everything just perfect can become stressful. This weekend I was moved to tears in two very different ways. Two things that made these little 'stresses' seem so trivial.

The first was attending the memorial service for a friend's two year old daughter. In a very short time, this little girl changed many people's lives.

The second was coming together with a hall full of strangers to sing Handel's Messiah. This work is so full of passion it makes your hair stand on end.

After I'm gone, I don't expect millions of people to celebrate my birth every year. I don't expect people to be inspired by the story of my life, or any of my work to be great enough that it is performed over and over for centuries to come. But I do hope my children remember me as the mama who always had a cuddle, a song, a story or an adventure up my sleeve. That's really more important than one more batch of mince pies and homemade Christmas crackers.