full circle in song

Today I spent several hours with my grandma alone. Just a few weeks ago she was making us dinner, holding Elliott in her lap and teaching Liam a Bible verse for the letter "N". This afternoon she could hardly keep her eyes open, barely understood a thing I said to her and didn't even recognize me until I told her who I was. My grandma is failing fast and it's heartbreaking.

When I arrived I pulled up a chair next to her and tried to figure out what to do for the next four hours. I thought of reading to her but I was sure she'd never hear me. No chance for a conversation. And reading the book I brought seemed like a cop out. As I rubbed her leg, I had a flashback to all the times as a child when I'd sleep over at her house and she'd sit with me in the darkened bedroom rubbing my back and singing to me. I clung to those moments and carried them with me through the rough years that followed. My grandma's voice was pure gold.

So I decided I'd sing. I found a hymnal and started flipping through, stopping at any hymn I recognized. Occasionally my grandma flashed a big smile, twice - out of tune and out of breath - she sang along, many times she made a small sound that let me know she was listening, a lot of the time she was sound asleep. But I sang on. For two hours straight I sang. Here is what I learned by singing today:

1. Music stirs the soul. No matter what state a person is in, music - and singing in particular - uplifts. I have read in several places that many Haitians could be heard singing in the streets the night after the earthquake. Their songs were hope filled despite their circumstance.

2. Singing changes everyone. The change in my grandma's countenance was obvious to me. Although I am a completely average singer, I love to sing and to have someone to sing to, unaccompanied, for two hours straight, lifted my spirits in a way that my regular shower gig never really does.

3. I know a lot of hymns. After two hours of singing I still hadn't gotten through the hymn book. I wasn't surprised I knew so many. I was surprised I could sing them without a piano or better singer to get them started. These are hymns I've heard and sung since I was a girl - at church, at camp, at my grandma's house. Years ago I was the one listening; now that the notes are written in my heart, I could just open my mouth and sing.

4. Sacred music is called sacred for a reason. I haven't given a lot of thought to hymns in the past. There are some I really like, but today, with just me and my hymn book and my grandma, I experienced how deep and moving and beautiful they all are. At one point after I finished a hymn, my grandma sighed and said, "There's a lot of poetry in those," like she was just discovering it for the first time. I know, though, that she has heard and sung these songs thousands of times. Therein lies the mystery: at 94, when your body and mind are failing you, the music still speaks anew. I guess this is why we imagine that angels sing. How could they not?

Coming from a large extended family of singers, I had the added bonus of hearing all the harmonies and voices in my head as I sang. And it struck me today how lucky I am to have this hymn-singing heritage. So, to you, my dear grandma Gaye, for singing to me so beautifully and lovingly while you rubbed my back and while you made your applesauce and baked your bread and sewed, and for leading your family in hymns of hope and praise, thank you, thank you, thank you. Nothing makes me happier right now than to know that for one small blip in time, I could give that gift back to you.