Threshold Choir in Lawrence comes alive to sing for the dying

The open door lets the women’s singing waft into the cool evening.

Had someone passed by on the narrow, residential street in this college town, they may have slowed, stopped even. And listened in the dark to the two-round, a cappella harmony coming from the small, white house.

But they likely would not have recognized a tune or lyric. The songs are not for them.

They are for the dying.

The women inside make up Lawrence’s new Threshold Choir. The idea is for members to go in small groups to a hospice setting, hospital or home and sing softly at the bedsides of those near death.

At the recent rehearsal, member Anne Haehl tells the newer ones not to expect songs they’ve heard before. She has read that those don’t work for the dying.

“When you play a familiar song, it holds them back,” she says.

The first Threshold Choir started a few years ago in California. Now it is a growing national organization with chapters in more than 100 cities, mostly on the coasts, and some in other countries. The newly formed Lawrence group is the closest to Kansas City.

Some choir members are religious, others aren’t. The idea is to be spiritual. The songs, such as “Guide Me,” are written specifically for Threshold groups and fit all faiths and no faith.

Guide me through the darkness. Guide me through the light. Abide with me through seas of doubt and in the sacred, starry night.

Elaine McIntosh, chief executive officer of Kansas City Hospice and Palliative Care, said there is a long history of music at the threshold.

“Monks hundreds of years ago chanted at the bedside of a dying person,” McIntosh said. “Harpists played when death was imminent. Music is about relaxation, even a distraction for those in pain and anxious.

“Nothing is for everyone, but I think the idea for this choir is very interesting.”

The Lawrence women signed up because they care; they want to comfort. The members have been practicing for their first bedside singing. They know family will be there. Light may be low and the room crowded.

Please, no “take two.” They even rehearse with one of them lying down, posing as the dying.

None of the members is a singer by trade or training. Jean Drumm, the leader of the Lawrence choir, is a retired piano teacher. Others include a bureaucrat, a stay-at-home mom, a professor and a firefighter, mostly all retired.

They need young voices, and Wednesday those show up. Two University of Kansas students, both from South Korea, heard about the choir in a class.

“We like singing, and this sounded like it would help people,” says Stella Kim, a graduate student.

A few of the members say they typically listen to classical music. One says hymns. Some prefer jazz.

“I like rock ’n’ roll,” says Sophia Compton, a retired women’s studies professor from the University of California-Berkeley.

Well, she likely won’t hit any Grace Slick belts with this bunch.

At bedside, Threshold Choirs sing almost in lullaby voice, at times a near whisper.

Like singing a baby to sleep.

Right mindset

Kate Munger, the California founder of Threshold, said she got the idea for the choir as she sat at the bedside of her friend Larry as he lay in a coma and dying of AIDS.

She was scared.

“So I sang,” she said recently from her home. “Softly and for a long time.”

It made her feel better, and though she will never know for sure, she thinks it comforted Larry during his last hours.

Shortly after that, she organized the first Threshold Choir meeting in 1990 at a home in El Cerrito, Calif. From there the idea spread to other parts of California.

One of those early singers, Tammy Heinsohn, took the idea to Nashville, Tenn., when she moved there. Her chapter was featured recently on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition.”

It’s not easy, Heinsohn told The Star last week, to find singers for this gig.

“This is not for everyone,” she said. “People have to be in the right mindset. People have to want to serve, and they have to face their own issues about death and dying.

“It’s hard, but we don’t want someone breaking down. They need to sing on. Family members will cry, and we may shed a discreet tear, but we have to keep singing, softly and sweetly.

“I love it when family members are there. It’s a very tender time. Our singing gives them another method of touching the loved one. We allow tears to come through the music.

“I’ve had patients look up and smile, and I know they hadn’t smiled all day.”

Ira Byock, a physician who has written extensively about end-of-life issues, including in the book “Dying Well,” said the death process is often gray and devoid of joy.

“Threshold Choirs offer their voices to uplift — to lift up — people feeling the weight of illness and the burden of difficult transitions,” Byock said in a recent Threshold newsletter. “Music is a gift of beauty that complements medicine.”

Emily Olschki, a music therapist with Kansas City Hospice, said she has seen first hand the power of instrumental music for those in transition. Why not a choir?

“Sounds like a great way to get volunteers from the community,” Olschki said.

Heinsohn likes that the 450 or so songs in the Threshold book, though some sound like hymns, are for everyone.

“Kate (Munger) has said that churches often take care of their own,” she said. “So we get everybody else.”

Any advice for Jean Drumm in Lawrence when it comes to recruiting singers?

“Be patient,” Heinsohn said. “They will come. They want to come.”

‘We will be wanted’

Shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday, the singers arrive for rehearsal at the Oread Friends Meeting House in Lawrence.

Helen Tabone is the first to show and one of the newer members.

“I heard about it in my church newsletter,” she says. “I thought it sounded beautiful. If it eases their hearts, I want to be part of that.”

Compton pulls up on her Viva scooter. It gets 150 mpg, she boasts. Drumm is visiting outside with others when she sees KU students Stella Kim and Christina Kim (no relation) walk up.

“Oh, thank you for coming,” she tells them, sounding relieved. “You are what we need.”

They smile and nod.

Minutes later, the group gathers inside in a living room-like setting.

Drumm blows her pitch pipe.

“Do-re-mi-fa — Oh,” she grimaces. “I got to try that again.”

One of the first songs is “Celebrate.”

Celebrate your heart and your spirit. Celebrate your heart while you live it. Even when it’s hard to do, celebrate the best of you.

Celebrate your dreams and vision. Celebrate the love you’ve been given. Celebrate all you’ve been through. Celebrate the best of you.

Drumm stops them after one time through.

“Now close your eyes and listen to each other’s voice and try to blend with them,” she says.

They watch her for cues and soon are rolling in a two-round harmony. It’s good. They smile and sing on.

When Drumm stops them, Compton says she has never sung that part before. She turns around.

“Did I do OK?” she asks Melissa Warren, the retired firefighter.

Warren shrugs, “I guess.”

During a break, Drumm explains they are trying to build confidence for that first bedside visit. She knows that will be a big step for all of them.

Compton says she takes comfort in that they will sing only when they are invited.

“So we will be wanted there,” she says.

Some of the others nod. Warren says she won’t be fazed.

“I’m a retired firefighter,” she says. “There’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Drumm later blows the pitch pipe and this choir sings, again the music going out through the door and into the autumn night.

In voices together, and so alive.

This story was originally published September 28, 2014 at 8:49 PM with the headline "Threshold Choir in Lawrence comes alive to sing for the dying."