Approaching year’s end and I have just finished a Christmas tour to sunny Queensland with some dear friends, including Australia’s number 1 Celtic-Crossover artist, Suellen Cusack! Along with the wonderful singer Jess Savage, superb violinist Kate Hardisty, and surprise bagpiper Kyle Myers, we performed our uplifting program in several non-airconditioned churches and cathedrals across central Queensland. Our sublime and sweltering performances were a welcome respite for me from Melbourne’s chilly December. Some like it hot!

St Joseph's Mackay. Photo: Memo Segovia

As well as the jingling and joyous Christmas familiars, I included an unconventional choice as part of the program (I know you’re all shocked!). I sang One Small Star, by Australian-Scottish singer-songwriter Eric Bogle, with Suellen accompanying me on guitar. 

Rockhampton Cathedral. Photo: Memo Segovia

It is by no means a Christmas song. One Small Star is a bittersweet ballad about remembering those we love, who we have now lost. Whose memory surfaces especially painfully at Christmas time - when family and friends are gathered together. The song resonates even more now for those who are lighting Chanukah candles and grieving those lost in the Bondi attacks. May their light never go out.

My mum introduced me to Eric Bogle’s music when I was a as a kid, and I grew up with several of his albums on high rotation. This song has been with me for a long time. My sister and I often performed it at the Relay for Life cancer research fundraiser in Werribee as youngsters.

It strikes me that Christmas is such a strong signpost to mark the end of the year. And it is traditionally a time of great joy and togetherness. But for those who have lost someone it, can also be a time of heavy sadness. The togetherness of the season makes us feel their loss even more keenly, like a concentration of absence in your heart and home. The ache of it. And the pressure to be joyful often causes us to push down and deny this sadness, making our own invisible cage of grief. A secret loneliness.

All those “first Christmases without” … the one we’ve lost. How painful those days are. Fiercely holding it together during family time, amidst children’s shouting and merry conversation. Then slipping away for a few moments to cry or say a prayer. A quiet “wish you were still here with us.” Despite the hubbub and activity, there’s a little corner of your heart holding space for them.

So, I sang One Small Star for those who are holding space in their hearts this Christmas for the beautiful ones we have lost.

Suellen and I performing One Small Star in Gladstone, Qld.

One Small Star – Eric Bogle.

When I need to feel you near me, I stand in this quiet place              

with the silver light of countless stars falling on my face.              

Though they all shine so brightly, somehow it comforts me to know              

that some who burned the brightest died an eternity ago

[chorus]              

But your light still shines, it’s one small star to guide me              

and to help me hold back the dark –               

your light’s still shining in my heart.

I’m learning how to live without you, though I never thought I could,              

and even how to smile again, I never thought I would –              

and to cherish the heart’s memory that can bring you back to life              

though some caress me gently, and some cut me like a knife.

[chorus]

May your soul be out there somewhere beyond the infinity of time              

I guess you’ve found some answers now, I’ll have to wait for mine –               

till my light joins with yours someday, to shine through time and space              

and someday fall in a distant age, upon some stranger’s face.

[chorus]

After the performances, several audience members came up to me and spontaneously shared their grief. People who had lost partners, friends, parents, and even children throughout the year – all fighting back tears as they shook my hand. Some weren’t able to name their grief, simply saying “I am in the same boat this year” before moving on. I felt honoured that they shared their stories and a little of their grief. From my own experience, I know that being able to acknowledge it, and for it to be seen and recognised is incredibly important. It can ease the burden, even just a little.

Eric Bogle wrote One Small Star in the aftermath of the 1996 Dunblane massacre in Scotland, where a gunman entered a primary school and killed 16 children and teacher. There is devastating resonance with Australia’s own tragedy last week. We had planned the repertoire several months ago, and couldn’t have imagined that such a terrible thing could happen again in Australia. Please reach out to your friends in the Jewish community, and to anyone suffering the moral injury of witnessing something so awful take place in our beautiful country.

And if you need to step away for a few moments during the celebrations this year, know you’re not alone.

L-R: Kate Hardisty, me, Suellen Cusack, Jessica Savage, Kyle Myers. Photo: Memo Segovia