Music has been a through-line in my life. Although I’ve never performed professionally, I’ve sung in a choir nearly non-stop since the fifth grade, learned to play the piano, and taught myself to play the guitar and the recorder. There is so much music that moves me, but that which really touches my heart most deeply is the music that I sing.
I’m a long-standing member of the Maine Music Society Chorale and the MMS Chamber Singers, which performs in and around Lewiston. In every performance there are special moments when certain phrases, movements or passages will touch me deeply, nearly bringing me to tears. But when I first heard and then sang Daniel Gawthrop’s art song Sing Me to Heaven, I felt that I’d encountered my very own theme song.
…my soul finds primal eloquence and wraps me in song.
If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby
If you would win my heart, sing me a love song
If you would mourn me and bring me to God
Sing me a requiem, sing me to heaven
I believe that music reaches a very deep place in the soul. It resonates with joy or grief, longing or love, frivolity or spiritual devotion. In the last couple of years I’ve had the privilege of leading a choir that provides bedside singing for those at the end of their lives. Singing songs of solace can bring comfort and joy to both patient and family at this sacred time of life. If the patient is very close to passing, we might choose to sing something in a foreign language, or perhaps a Native American chant. That way the patient is simply surrounded by the vibrations of love and peace. We are truly “singing them to heaven.” For me personally, I can think of no better way to pass over into the next life than wrapped in song.