By Rachel Fish
A GREENFIELD artist had a day to remember as she delivered a special gift to her idol Gloria Estefan in London.
Rachel Fish travelled to London with daughter Courtney to hand over her sketches at the concert and meet-and-greet event and was overjoyed when Gloria remembered her from a previous meeting.
Rachel writes: “We started our journey at Greenfield Railway station, sharing the story of our day ahead with Richelle and other passengers. 
“At Piccadilly we met a fellow Gloria fan/friend Lisa then at London Euston we met Billy and Tim, sharing our excitement in the station bar and taking photos.
“After finding our hotel, we met more Gloria fans. Overall there were 60 of us – it was buzzing with electricity. People in our Conga group – from Germany, Netherlands and Paris – were all brought together by email and social networks.
“Gloria came on stage at the Royal Albert to perform a fabulous, inspiring two-hour show. After when we collected our backstage pass it all became real.
“The next stage was to wait in the stairwell of a bar area where Gloria was meeting the first 20 people. We all chatted and the air was alive with excitement and nerves.
“We were told Gloria wouldn’t be signing items that people may bring and it would just be a meet and greet with photos.
“Courtney, Lisa and I were really excited as our group was called into the bar area. Courtney wanted to meet Emilio Estefan so we walked over with our present for Gloria.
“I had two sketches for Gloria: one was of her dog Noelle, her inspiration, who sadly passed away this year, and the other was of her grandson Sasha, drawn in Gloria’s arms.
“Emilio was stunned; he said ‘Gloria will really like them’. We took photos and went back to our place in the queue to meet Gloria.
“Then there was no one in the queue in front of us: we were next. I looked at Gloria and said with a smile: ‘Your Artist’.
“She immediately smiled and said ‘Rachel!’ and came at me with the biggest hug ever. She looked at Courtney and said ‘I haven’t seen you since you were little’ (when we met her in 2003 in Miami).
“Gloria chatted to Courtney then I mentioned I had some sketches for her of two of her inspirations as she has been mine for 25 years.
“As she looked at the charcoal sketch of Noelle everything around us went silent. She smiled and said she was going to write another book in Noelle’s memory.
“Then Gloria turned the next page in the file I gave her. I held my breath in anticipation, frozen in time with a HUGE smile as she looked at my sketch of her grandson.
“That silence fell over us again. I could feel the exhilaration and emotion overwhelm all of us.
“Gloria thanked me for the unique gift then we all hugged again. I was proud of myself and Courtney was overjoyed.”
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