Catholic ping!
I’m a tenor in a local interfaith choir here in Southern NH. (I know what you’re thinking. It’s not interfaith in that sense, we’re all Christian, some of us are more orthodox than others.) A couple of years ago one of our members had a relapse of cancer and had to drop out.
Before the spring concert that year she went into hospice and wasn’t able to come hear us.
So we went to her. We did a good chunk of the concert or her right there in her room.
By the time we left several of the other patients who could came out of their rooms to hear us as well. Initially we were concerned about the volume, but they wanted us to us to be heard.
Not long after that she went home to be with the Lord.
The funeral was too soon for us to sing at, but the hospice holds a memorial service for all those who died the previous year, where we were able to sing the same songs we did that night.
Sounds like Logan’s run.. bring on the death panel!
My father died the monday before an Easter. I turned the radio on in his room and the most wonderful chant music and choir music was availabe. I put it on softly by his bed. I wonder if he thought he was hearing angels?
As part of my civil war reenacting I collected music of the 19th Century, and have accumulated a good bit of it.
In the course of my research I discovered that an old New England tradition was to have the family and close friends of one who was preparing to cross over gather around the death bed in a circle, holding hands, and “Sing them home”.
As my Mother lay dying, I knew it was time, and since I couldn’t interest other family members at the time or they weren’t available, I sat by her bed and sang one of the old (published 1860) traditional Homesinging hymns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX0-ToOOCb4
My old 1860 score calls it “Beulah Land” but it’s more commonly known nowadays as “Angel Band”.
I’m blessed to see this old tradition still being honored on occasion.