Personal Stories

A Cancer Patient’s Bedside and Memorial (Kate)

Margie was a woman who had sung with me once or twice before, who had found a two-year-old postcard of mine that described the Threshold Choir in her purse. She asked our friend Sheryl to call me and I went the next day to meet Margie, her partner Danny, and her son. Margie was alert yet twisted amazingly from the contraction of cancer in her bones. But her smile was luminous and I knew this was a situation where we could really serve. Four days later, Claudia and I began the first of three sessions with Margie, who by then was only conscious intermittently.

It felt really good to sing to sing together, to really hear each of our voices taking turns and supporting the other. To really feel like a team. And to add yet another way for us to give voice to the love that flows between and around us. When we finished our first song, Margie’s eyes fluttered open, she looked directly at us and soundlessly said, "Wonderful." It turned out that was her last spoken word. After about a half hour of singing, I felt we were almost, but not quite done...I was moved to ask the family if the words "It’s all right, you can go, your memories are safe with us felt appropriate. They all said yes, and they sang along and cried quietly.

So we returned two more times, each time ending with "It’s All Right..." And they sang with us each time. So both Margie’s sons, her daughter-in-law, and her partner were there at various times. They had really begun to prepare themselves and Margie for her death. The house was quiet and peaceful, and they welcomed us warmly each time we came. Finally on the third day, all of us knew without saying so that we wouldn’t be returning. And Margie died that night.

They asked us to sing at her memorial. Margie had been a vital part of a large spirit community and her memorial was very sad and very joyous at the same time. I really wished I had known her in life...learning what a deep, caring, devoted person she was from those she left behind was hard. It was a lovely service with honest, vigorous, and lovely works and beautiful piano music and choral pieces. Margie’s son David gave us a gift, a view from a different perspective when he said in his eulogy that, having been a firefighter for 25 years, he thought he knew what courage was, but that our choir’s courage to enter strangers’ homes to accompany them on this journey really showed him another level of bravery. For him, that his mother’s last word was "Wonderful" gave him a peace he hadn’t expected and for which he was very grateful.

Claudia and I stood in front of the huge congregation and sang "Death is not putting out the light, it is extinguishing the lamp because the dawn has come." Rabindranath Tagore’s beautiful words. And we led the congregation in singing "Guide Me" and "It’s All Right" I was really honored to be given the opportunity and was really proud of Claudia’s bravery and generous spirit.

I am grateful to Margie for asking us to come. I am grateful to Sheryl and Margie’s family for welcoming us so warmly. And I thank Claudia for her voice and her love.