Great Barrington — There’s a movement afoot that provides solace and support to the dying through singing. In small groups of twos and threes, Berkshire Threshold Choir members sing gently at the bedside of the sick, ministering to those at the threshold of death.
“This is our gift to others, and it’s a gift for us to do this,” said the group’s director Linda Bryce, a Great Barrington resident and the author of “The Courage to Care: Being Fully Present with the Dying.”
Dying is a process of letting go, and music and song can ease the journey. “We’ve sung at people’s bedside for 6–12 months,” said Bryce. The choir is available for both one-time and longer term offerings. “We can start singing from the time of a diagnosis.” The goal is for people to receive the “soothing sounds and vibrations.”
Founded in 2016, the Berkshire group is one of more than 200 Threshold Choir chapter affiliates worldwide, and the only western Massachusetts-based affiliate. The first Threshold Choir was established in 2000 in northern California, with subsequent chapters opening nationwide and overseas. The service is free of charge.
The volunteer choir sings weekly at hospices, nursing homes, private homes, and post-funeral gatherings — any place to which they are invited. They travel throughout the Berkshires, northwestern Connecticut, and Columbia County, New York. Choir members are fully vaccinated, wear masks, and adhere to all COVID-19 protocols.
“We sing lullabies for the end-of-life, offering reassurance, connection, and peace,” said Bryce. “Rhythm and beat are an innate part of the human condition from the time we’re in the womb.” Music is a bridge to connect with someone. In fact, neuroscientists have shown that music lights up more parts of the brain than any other stimulus.
The choir is like a “midwife for the dying,” said Michelle Kuzia, who lives in Great Barrington and has been a member for four years. Similar to singing to newborn babies to comfort and usher them into the world, the choir comforts those who are leaving life. There’s a labor to dying, Kuzia explained. It’s not easy to let go.
With two or three choir members gathered around a bedside, singing softly and expressing gratitude to a person for all they’ve given in life, “it’s a very intimate experience,” Kuzia affirmed. The choir’s presence lets people know they haven’t been forgotten and they’re not alone. “Often, there are tears in a person’s eyes as we’re singing,” she said.
The act of singing reminds us of the spiritual nature of death, Kuzia said. Both singing and death are universal and natural. As opposed to “fighting” death, Kuzia said that, over her years singing to those on the precipice, she’s come to view death as something that we “move towards.”
As a culture, we tend to be afraid of death. People don’t even want to talk about it, admitted choir member Jessica Curtis. “There’s a tendency to glorify youth, and people can feel ‘invisible’ as they age,” she said. But there’s wisdom, value, and experience in aging that needs to be honored and recognized. And when you spend time at someone’s bedside, you acknowledge that a person’s life has mattered, what they’ve brought into this world has mattered, Curtis said. Bedside singing is a “conscious” way of saying goodbye. “It’s an offering of respect.”
Hopefully, in the future, Curtis said, “this will help lead to a healthier relationship with death.”
To request singers or to contact the choir, email Linda Bryce at thresholdchoir9@gmail.com
