This Little Girl of Mine

This year I have had the pleasure of teaching Lea's daughter, Bianca. She is a bright and cheerful girl and has been an enthusiastic and capable student.
Bianca is all the more special because of what she has been through and how remarkably she has dealt with a major challenge in her life.

At the age of 4 she was diagnosed with leukemia. For 2 long years Bianca and her family battled with her cancer. Thankfully now she is a healthy young girl.

A short time ago Lea wrote a poem on her feelings about what the family had been through and posted the words on one of her blogs. I was touched by this especially with having such close contact with Bianca as her teacher.

Here are some of Lea's reflections on her writing of the poem:

''I wrote the poem the same day as it appeared on my blog (Friday 11 November) (http://livinglifenowinkiwiland.blogspot.com/2011/11/rambling-thoughts-on-friday.html).  At the time I was busy going through Bianca's old photos (the thousands of photos we took during her treatment) to get some done for the photo display boards we had at the Funrazor and I thought to myself how far we've come with all of this.  I remember just after Bianca was diagnosed how it felt time stood completely still.  I remember it release it was simply going to be 2 and a third years.  And in the early days I often thought there was no way I could actually do all of this, but I had to.  And so I guess the poem for me summed up Bianca's journey from where she came to where she is now.  I guess it is for me a message of hope that even though it felt like time stood still, you do get to a point where you look back and realise how far you've come.  And that even though she lost a lot of the innocence at that age, she is now just a typical child doing typical things."

When Lea's Funrazor approached Sarah, a mutual friend e mailed me to ask whether I'd written a melody for Lea's poem. With only 4 days to the event I was spurred on to have a go to come up with something suitable. I am thrilled with the result. I feel my melody suits the words of Lea's poem well and I know she likes it. I was extremely proud to be able to perform our song at the Funrazor.

Here is the YouTube video that Lea has beautifully put together to match pictures with the words of 'This Little Girl of Mine'