Goodbyes

The mothers' vigil

With their beach chairs, photographs, journals, and broken hearts, mothers who have lost children to war keep vigil at Arlington National Cemetery. They are the so-called Section 60 Mothers, whose sons died as soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who support each other through their grief. These women visit the graves regularly to mark birthdays, talk to their sons, and make sure they are not forgotten. National Public Radio ran a two-part story on this group this week, and it stopped me in my tracks. I invite you to listen or read here.

A hospital wedding with 'good vibrations'

Harpist Nancy Kleiman has performed at numerous weddings, her hands gliding over the strings to evoke soothing, uplifting, and ethereal notes.

This past Valentine's Day, she accompanied yet another wedding, but this one took place in the hospital -- and the bride was dying of cancer.

"Her simple gown was a 'Johnny,' Nancy wrote. "Her lips were covered with a mask to help her breathe, and her 'veil' was the small cotton cap that covered her lockless crown."

Nancy strummed at the woman's bedside at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston as the couple took their vows, supported by a handful of caregivers and family members. The patient held a bouquet of yellow tulips and beamed as the chaplain read from the Song of Songs, "Arise my beloved." There was a small wedding cake with a traditional bride-groom figurine at the top.

The ceremony was one of the most poignant moments Nancy has experienced as she takes her harp -- which she calls an "instrument of compassion" -- around two Boston hospitals (Brigham and Women's and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) and a local hospice. Her goal is to ease anxiety, sadness, and grief, as well as lift spirits during stressful times.

Whether she is playing Celtic, Irish, American folk, or spiritual selections such as "Amazing Grace," Nancy's music gives people permission to cry, exchange feelings, and loosen emotional knots, she told me during a recent interview. It can even inspire goodbye conversations that might not otherwise happen. "I create sacred space," says Nancy, pointing out that harps are mentioned more than 50 times in the Bible and are, of course, associated with angels and heaven.

She doesn't have an assigned spot but goes where she is needed, whether to patient rooms or common areas. While riding in a crowded hospital elevator one day, a woman turned to her and said, "Do you ever play for patients? My mother is dying." "I'm right behind you," is Nancy's typical reply.

Music has been tapped for its healing powers since ancient times, and its role is growing in hospice and palliative care programs, according to the Growth House site. There are even formal programs in music thanatology, which involves using live music at the bedside of dying patients.

Nancy, however, is self-taught, inspired to take up the stringed instrument after attending a harp-filled funeral several years ago. A former nun who converted to Judaism, she sees herself not as a music therapist but as a compassionate human being who "circulates good vibrations" and who translates love -- whether at a birth, death, or other major life event -- into healing melodies.

So when her cell phone rang on Valentine's Day, and a hospital chaplain asked her to play during the patient's wedding, she headed straight to the room. "I knew I would be receiving a gift far greater than I could ever give -- a gift of witnessing the power of love to transcend death," she wrote in an essay about the event.

The bride passed away about a month after they were married, Nancy said. "I played the harp at her wake."
      
Consider this . . .      
Music can help during times of sadness, stress, and grief.

Music can also inspire conversations at the end of life.

What matters most is the love in the room.

Fridays with her dad

Intensely curious and intelligent, Stephen was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who relished solving problems -- whether it was determining the moon's location for the U.S. space program, understanding the workings of a milling machine, or calculating how to grow the most delicious tomatoes in his garden.

But Stephen was also a "people person" with a warm heart and twinkle in his eye. If someone needed help, he would interrupt his work to answer a question, listen, or provide a comforting hug.

In 2006, when he was in his late 60s, Stephen learned that he had liver cancer. A relative offered to donate part of her liver, but the cancer grew too fast, and Stephen was no longer eligible for a transplant. He went through some treatment but eventually decided to forgo it in favor of quality of life.

He spent his last few months at his homes on Cape Cod and in Lexington, Mass., enjoying the company of family and friends -- including his five grandchildren, whom he adored. His grandson Charlie was even quoted at the memorial service: "When Gramps held me, I felt good. Gramps was the missing piece of the puzzle that held all the other pieces together and made them whole."

Stephen's daughter, Elizabeth, visited him regularly during those final months, both at home and in the hospital. Fridays became a special day for them, a day when they'd talk alone about anything and everything. Despite his illness, he always seemed to feel better on Fridays, according to Elizabeth –- a lawyer who is currently at home with her kids.

One day, when she went to visit him in Lexington, Elizabeth realized that her dad had showered and dressed because she was coming. "Walking around the corner of the house, I saw him and thought, 'Oh, my god. This means a lot to him, too,' Elizabeth remembers. "So we sat in their back yard and had breakfast. I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but it was a really nice visit. He was such a rewarding person to be around because you felt like you mattered. You did matter."

"After that, there were several Fridays where we would talk about how he felt about dying. He was not worried about it or about us. Just very at peace."

During the last week of Stephen's life, in the fall of 2006, family members converged in the living room where his hospital bed stood. His condition wavered; on one day, he seemed on the edge of death, and family members circled around him, crying and sharing little gifts from his grandchildren. Then Stephen rebounded. For a couple of days, Elizabeth and others sorted through old photos with him or climbed onto the bed and held him. "It was so lovely," she told me. "We had so much access to him."

When Elizabeth visited her father that Friday night, Stephen was sitting up and asking for his watch; he was a precise scientist to the end. "I asked if he wanted me to build him a fire. At first he said no, then he looked at me and said, 'Yeah, make me a fire.' It was such a nice thing to allow me to do that."

Stephen passed away peacefully the next day at the age of 70, cradled by his wife of nearly 50 years, Nancy. Although Elizabeth was not in the room when her dad took his last breath, she cherishes their Friday conversations and is comforted knowing how much he treasured that time, too.

Consider this . . .
Spend time with someone who is dying. 

Scattering Cheryl's ashes

My cousin Ann took us to the shores of Lake Michigan last summer. We followed a long, windy path through the woods and emerged at a bright clearing flanked by dunes of fine sand. Beyond the dunes was the calm, shimmering lake, where we rolled up our pants with our kids and searched for fossilized coral called Petoskey stones. We all agreed it was a magical spot.

Although we didn't know it at the time, that state park was also a resting spot for one of Ann's friends, who had died several years earlier. Ann had placed some of her ashes there, and Ann relayed the story as we hiked back to our car.

Ann and Cheryl had met when they both lived outside Bloomington, Indiana. Ann was practicing landscape architecture, and Cheryl had landed her dream job coordinating recycling programs. But a brain tumor changed her plans, and after undergoing treatment for several years, she passed away in her late 30s or early 40s.

Cheryl was a "small-town girl" from Indiana who had not traveled much beyond the state. She came up with the idea of dividing her ashes (her remains after cremation) into 50 bottles and having friends scatter them so she would symbolically have a chance to see the world. At the memorial service, Ann picked up a small bottle with her share.

Ann knew she wanted to take the ashes to Leelanau State Park on Lake Michigan, not far from where our family has been vacationing for several generations.

One cool day, perhaps early spring, she walked alone through the woods toward the dunes. It was exceptionally quiet. "I got to the spot and reached for the cork, and as soon as I pulled it out, I heard a tree nearby make this loud squeal. I looked up and said, 'Hello Cheryl.'" At Ann's feet were two hemlock tree seedlings, so she spread the ashes around them. Then she filled the empty bottle with a note that went something like, "Here lies my dear friend Cheryl. She was always loved." My cousin dug a hole in the sand and covered up the bottle.

Where to place a person's remains after a cremation is often a difficult decision, unless the individual has already made those arrangements. Known as ashes, they can be scattered or buried in a variety of places, from gardens to cemeteries to sports grounds to the sea. You can have your or your loved one's remains released from a hot air balloon, sprinkled over the mountains, or placed in a biodegradable urn that floats briefly and then sinks in the ocean. Some people choose to keep some or all of the remains at home, or in a special pendant.

In Cheryl's case, one friend took her ashes to a lake in Glacier National Park, while another transported the bottle to England and spread the contents under a tree. There was talk of making a book for Cheryl's two children describing where their mom has gone.

For Ann, burying part of her friend at Leelanau State Park means she can go to one of her favorite places on Earth and always think of Cheryl. Even though the two had a falling out toward the end, which Ann believes may have been triggered by the tumor, she is comforted knowing that part of her friend, a gardening expert, will always be in this beautiful and tranquil spot.