RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

Growing chorus of Vt. groups singing to dying patients

Gayle Sheldon could hear crickets cheep at the setting sun when the stranger began to sing. "There are angels hovering 'round/There are angels hovering 'round …" Sheldon, sitting outside her small Rutland house with its big wheelchair ramp, listened as the lone female voice melded into a choir of three sopranos, three altos, two tenors and two basses.

"There are angels, angels, hovering 'round/To carry the tidings home."

Sheldon, 71, hoped so. This past June, doctors told her she had glioblastoma. Pronounced gleo-blast-oh-ma, that meant she had a cancerous brain tumor. That meant at least two people would have to care for her at all times.

"It's kind of tough to watch my mother fade away," her daughter Carol Horton-Owen said.

But early one evening in late September, Sheldon and more than a dozen family members, friends and neighbors momentarily forgot that. Lounging in lawn chairs on the driveway, they listened to a choir formed especially for them.

The group, named Trillium, is a new initiative of the Rutland Area Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice. It's one of a growing number of choruses in the state and nation singing to people who are ill or dying.

"Music seems to soothe her when she's having a rough day," Sheldon's daughter said just before the start of the driveway concert.

Singing to comfort and console is a centuries-old tradition. Medieval monks chanted. Hindus sang hymns. But as an organized effort, it's a new trend in the United States.

A Threshold Choir formed in California in 2000 has spawned more than 30 same-named groups in at least a dozen states. In Vermont, a group of friends formed Brattleboro's Hallowell choir in 2003, inspiring the creation of similar choruses in Bennington, Burlington, Middlebury, Montpelier, Randolph and St. Johnsbury.

Some 50 volunteers from Rutland and surrounding towns gathered at Grace Congregational Church last spring to rehearse hymns, rounds and chants, then went to the visiting nurse association for three hours of hospice training. This fall, breaking into small groups, they're performing in local residences, hospital rooms and nursing homes.

Their do-re-mi comes with a few dos and don'ts. Don't, for example, talk to patients if you're standing at the foot of their bed or else they'll feel obligated to sit up.

Do, however, inquire what they want and need to hear. Some people crave spirituals ("O Sing to Me of Heaven") while others prefer secular titles ("Love Call Me Home"). Some like songs with a message, while others don't want to focus on words but instead on letting go (the one-word African chant "Khutso" — which means peace — is good for that).

Sheldon learned of the choir when she became a hospice patient in September. Born in Danby and schooled in Rutland, she had cared for several dying family members even as she had survived colon cancer.

"My mother has always been a caregiver," her daughter said. "She's always given."

Then the brain tumor took over.

On the evening of the driveway concert, Sheldon's family passed around apple cider and frosted doughnuts and pointed to beef stew and macaroni and cheese on the stove. The singers, lining up in front of the garage, introduced themselves and the history of their group. Even so, some in the audience didn't quite understand.

"Will I get to dance?" Sheldon's brother Norman Lamoria asked.

It's more about listening, a family member whispered. That's when Licia Gambino Hamilton — who, with Mariah Freemole, assists musical director Mary Barron — blew into a pitch pipe to give singers their first note.

Everyone sang "Angels Hovering Round" as Sheldon's son-in-law circled with a camcorder.

"Sing it again," Lamoria said.

Instead, the choir launched into "Angel Band": "My latest sun is sinking fast/My race is nearly run/My strongest trials now are past/My triumph has begun …"

Halfway through, Sheldon motioned for her daughter to help her out of her wheelchair. The choir members, looking worried, kept singing as Sheldon, draped in a blanket that dragged along the pavement, took her daughter's hand and began waltzing.

"You still got it, Gayle," a friend said as Sheldon moved on to dance with her son David.

The choir is getting used to such surprises. The day before, the group sang for member Vickie Gillhouse's grandmother.

"My grandma keeps wanting me to introduce her to some nice elderly gentlemen," Gillhouse had told her fellow singers. "It doesn't matter what they look like — she can't see."

The resulting laughter felt loving and light.

The choir blends a variety of voices. Danielle Merrill, a 22-year-old alto from Clarendon, is a phlebotomist and emergency medical technician. Richard Nordmeyer, a 71-year-old bass from Castleton, is a member of a local barbershop chorus. He sums up each member's reason for gathering: "I love singing, and it's singing for a really worthwhile cause."

The choir performs for an equally diverse mix of ill and dying patients.

"Our tag line for Trillium is 'singers of comfort, hope and healing,'" says Randi Cohn, hospice volunteer services coordinator. "Those three words span the emotional and physical support we hope our music will provide, whether we are singing for a hospice patient, a resident in a nursing facility or for family members at a memorial service."

In the driveway, the choir sang for 45 minutes until the sun set over the clothesline. Sheldon, feeling a chill, asked for a second blanket and one last song.

"I still have joy, I still have joy!" the group began. "After all the things I've been through, I still have joy!"

Three weeks later, the choir gathered again for Sheldon. This time, she was at Rutland Regional Medical Center in a room for patients living their last days.

"Mama, you have some guests who have come back to see you," her daughter said.

Sheldon, eyes closed, laid still and silent in bed. As the group began to sing, her daughter asked if she could hear. Sheldon strained to squeeze her hand in affirmation.

The choir reprised "Angels Hovering Round" and "Angel Band." It then launched into Sheldon's favorite song, "I'll Fly Away."

"Just a few more weary days and then/I'll fly away/To a land where true joys never end/I'll fly away."

Sheldon died four days later, on Oct. 19. But on this evening, as her family tearfully joined in the chorus, the woman in the hospital bed slowly sat up and, still pulsing with life, took hold of her daughter's hands.

Contact Kevin O'Connor at kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com.