Without any professional experience and very little musical training, Christine found her way into the music world through her love of writing. As an elementary educator for over 27 years, Christine always incorporates songs through her day with her little peanuts. She has written almost 100 children’s poems, many of them songs using familiar nursery rhymes and children’s tunes. When one of her dear friends lost her brother during Covid, it was heartbreaking. No one was able to be with him in the hospital. There was no wake or funeral. No way to spend time with her or to pay respects. She wanted to pay tribute to him so she wrote lyrics to a song. A colleague of hers read the lyrics, heard the melody immediately, and wrote an arrangement on his guitar. It gave her chills and she knew that she wanted to continue to write lyrics but had no way of turning them into songs. At the time, she only wished she could do that for herself. Then just before her 48th birthday, Christine was introduced to the ukulele. No lessons, no formal training, just self taught and motivated. Some of her lyrics would find their way into the strings of her ukulele but not every song is a fit for that instrument. Christine continued to write lyrics, making little recordings on her phone, and jotting notes on napkins. Sometimes at the crack of dawn she would be on her computer because she thought of an idea at three o’clock in the morning and it was the quietest time in the house. Whenever inspired, she would write. Some of her lyrics would find their way into the strings of her ukulele but not every song is a fit for that instrument.

When her mom passed in the Fall of 2026, the funeral was on a cold, gray day. She was returning to her sister’s house afterwards and she knew that she had to write. And she did. She locked herself in the bathroom upstairs with the scrap of paper she had started writing on in the car and wrote the lyrics to Beside You. The next day, she sang it into her phone and sent it to a friend who’s musical skills are much stronger than hers. She hopes one day to hear the lyrics married to the melody so she can share it with her family to honor her mother.