DYING
TO LISTEN
HUFFINGTON
05.19.13
The lyrics aren’t religious, and are meant for those
who may be spiritual but don’t follow a strict dogma.
for nurses and doctors. Once at a
hospital in California, says Munger, two of her singers were pushed
to sing for a patient who was in
pain by a “desperate” nurse, even
though they had not been invited.
“So they started singing for Mr.
Jones who sat bolt up in bed and
ordered them out.”
WHILE MORE EXPERIENCED
choirs have seen broad success in
gaining membership and clientele,
it’s a struggle for the newcomers
in D.C. People come and go. Synakowski and her husband, Ed, are
the constants, though others have
started to come more regularly. She
says local hospitals and hospices
have be “very receptive” to the
idea, thought she still doesn’t know
who, exactly, the choir will sing to.
“You can’t just go around saying you are singing to people who
are dying in beds. Some people
are very uncomfortable with it,”
Synakowski says. “I’m confused
about how to market it.”
When she’s asked to explain what
she does or when she makes a flyer,
she leaves the concept a vague: “We
sing to people at tender times.”
With a group so focused on
the dying, its rehearsals are often
equally meditations and conversations on death as they are chances
to harmonize. In the middle of the
April practice, Synkowski asked
singers to reflect on the role of
music in transitions and what led
them to the music and the dying.
Laureen Gastón, the acupuncturist who found one of Synakowsi’s
flyers at Starbucks, talked about
her mother and sister, who died
four weeks apart a year ago. She
first learned of Threshold Choir
songs last summer while attending a community singing group at
church during a vacation in Maine.
“At the time, I thought that the
idea of a Threshold Choir was intriguing given my latest losses and
how much I sang at their bedsides.
It made sense that others would
do the same for their loved ones,
but to hear about an organized
group was news. Last night, I found
myself singing those songs, and it
transported me right back there to
the ones I love,” Gastón said.
“My brother had died from cancer. His favorite song was called