New Year's Eve will be one year without her.

I've been a choirgirl my entire life, from the time I was eight, from the time the San Diego Children's Choir was founded by Polly Campbell who also directed and ran it for ten years. At first, I hated it. Polly's rules were strict. I wanted to have fun while I singing. I wanted to smile while singing. I wanted to talk and laugh and pass notes during rehearsal. I was just a kid, after all.

But Polly wasn't training kids. She was training professional musicians. At eight, at nine, how could I realize this? But in the Choir's third year, we began touring. Over the course of my middle school and high school careers, I traveled to the United Kingdom, Italy, Mexico, France, Canada, Germany, and all over New England and California. I sang in Royal Albert Hall in London, in Il Duomo in Florence, as part of church services that were in languages other than my own. I visited countless museums, cathedrals, castles, gardens, war sites, landmarks, memorials. I stayed with families of different cultures, learned to mimic that culture, learned to respect that culture, learned to overcome language barriers. …All before I turned 18. I was fulfilling dreams I was too young to know I had. Polly, on the other hand, knew she was fulfilling her dream. Her dream was to give children the opportunities she gave me.

I was the only charter member of the choir to stick with it for a full ten years (some dropped out, others were older than I and thus graduated before hitting the ten-year mark), an accomplishment I brag about to this day. I remember the spring concert of my graduating year. It was in San Diego's Symphony Hall. I remember putting on purple eyeshadow in the bathroom when I was already late for the rehearsal call. I remember sneaking around backstage, putting together a gift for Polly: small gifts from all the seniors compiled into a small canvas tote bag with a "Route 66" design printed on it. ("Route 66" was a favorite from our repertoire, and the bag was for Polly to carry her music or other necessities in while on tours.) I remember we all signed one of the original SDCC T-shirts for Polly to remember her decade-anniversary graduating class. I remember how hard it was to pin my white rose corsage, which designated my seniority, to my dress. Mostly, I remember thinking that this was not the time to be sad - after all, we were leaving for Germany in a few short weeks and would all be spending 15 wonderful days together there.

Polly didn't come to Germany with us. She was sick; she was getting tested. We went wild. We partied, we snuck out, we ate candy on concert days (a huge taboo). How wonderful it was that our authoritative figure wasn't there! (The assistant conductor and parent chaperones couldn't control us the way Polly could.)

When I got home from Europe and found out Polly had cancer, I asked the friend who'd told me if she was going to be okay. My friend said yes. My summer went on. Polly would be back to the Choir in January, the rumors said. Next September at the latest. I moved to Santa Barbara to attend school, and joined a choir. It wasn't as much fun (or as good) as SDCC; the director was far less respectful of his singers. I brought my music home to show Polly in October when I visited for a weekend. She had to wear a surgical mask while I was at her house because her immune system was down due to her treatments.

"I wish I could hug you," she said to me.

It was early December when my friend Sarah made me call her in Massachusetts. I was preparing for my first college final, and getting excited about the upcoming Winter Break. My roommate and I were playing Christmas music and eating chocolate out of our Advent calendars every day. Despite the upcoming tests, the spirit was perfect.

"Have you heard about Polly?" Sarah asked me.

"No, what about her?"

"Oh, Marie. My mom just called me. They're giving her a month to live."

I sat there with the receiver to my ear, listening to Sarah breathe (I had forgotten how) for a good ten minutes before managing to squeak out, "I have to go," and hanging up. Then the tears came. I don't remember how I ended up in my bed, but I remember being in it, curled up against the wall, with my roommate's arms around me. I remember choking out my regrets,

"I never told her how much she means to me… How much she influenced my life… She is the best person I've ever known… She made me who I am… more than my parents did even… She could do that for so many other kids… Why is God taking her away? We need her here!"

We went caroling at her house before Christmas. All the age groups of the Choir did, to sing their Holiday Concert, and a group of us alumni went too, just to sing for her one last time. We did a few Christmas carols, and then a few pieces we'd learned when we were eight and nine. She watched us through her living room window, a grayed, shrunken version of herself, an apparition.

When we could no longer keep our voices from trembling, we all told her we loved her, then walked around the corner of the building where she wouldn't see us, collapsed onto the sidewalk, and cried.

There is hardly a day that goes by when some memory of the Choir or the tours doesn't force its way to the front of my mind, making me wince with pleasure and pain. There isn't a day that goes by in which I don't try to sing, only to find my voice far less impressive than I once did. I maintain that Polly took it with her to Heaven. I maintain that I gave it willingly - the least I could do for all she gave me.