Personal Stories

Singing on the Day of Death (Nancy)

Threshold Choir is a soul-enchanting experience for me. Music is my main connection to spirit, and my singing with Threshold women has crescendo-ed that belief for me. I have always loved to sing, and adding the service of singing at the bedsides of those dying or being born has brought a whole new dimension to the art.

Singing to Ellen, our first client, was like singing to an appreciative angel, even on the day of her death. I have never liked hospitals, but having a mission of singing made it easier for me to be present in what I find to be a mechanized, smelly and generally uncomfortable place. Unfortunately, it is the place that western medical culture has made for many of us to go and pass on.

The Threshold Choir provides the human and spiritual contact that is missing in these institutions. While the overworked medical staff tried physical and medical interventions to keep Ellen’s body alive, we were keeping peace with her spirit. At times I felt very much in the way, but not when I saw Ellen’s face while we sang to her. We were comforting her soul.