 I have been studying final words for six years now and many of you may have heard oh wow oh wow oh wow those are the final words of Stephen Jobs of Apple Computer how many of you heard of those before? Oh not not that many so how about Thomas Edison's it's beautiful over there it's beautiful over there so I became intrigued with final words because of my father my father first of all PhD psychologist a bit of a skeptic didn't believe in anything beyond this world you know a realist New York kind of gritty guy and he started dying pretty suddenly over three three week period my background's in linguistics so I have an ear for language and a love for language so when my father started dying I noticed there were interesting things going on with his words so I started writing everything down over that period and for those of you who may at this time know someone who's transitioning or in dying I would encourage you and invite you to do the same thing they're tracking write down those final words because they might surprise you and inform you and inspire you and even console you at this point through the final words project we've collected 2,000 utterances and final words and we began to put those what we have we began to organize them by certain kinds of patterns and the results for me at some of them are linguistic insights many of them which I did not expect our actual spiritual insights or things that surprised me personally and have actually given me a lot of comfort about the dying process and and many other things so let me get a little bit more specific but before I do you may notice I don't have my shoes on tonight and the reason I don't is for some reason when I walked in the room tonight I felt you know this is really sacred ground we're talking about here and I just felt I wanted to take off through my shoes in honor and recognition that we're standing on very sacred ground when we talk about end of life and I know when my father was dying excuse when my father was dying we always took off our shoes when we walked into the room sort of an honor and recognition that something sacred was going on and as we look at final words if we can put on a lens have our imagined that what we're seeing is sacred because it's not always easy right it's often painful sometimes it's not pretty but to remember that we're walking into sacred territory so before we even begin I wanted to kind of give you our roadmap as we walk on sacred ground enter the world of your beloved and for me language is the key is the tool for entering into another person's world we enter into another person's world in many ways right but one way that we do it in life is to communicating anybody I ever have a grandchild or a child run up to you maybe two years old and say me want a cookie something like that well you don't say to the child excuse me your grammar is wrong there we need to talk about none of what do you say here's a cookie right what kind of cookie cookie cookie right it we enter into that child's world and in the same way the invitation that I'm going to extend to all of you is to do the same thing with someone who you may love as they're dying to enter into that world even the language you hear is baffling maybe even sometimes scary so enter the world of your beloved as a linguist I was trained that if I were in another country I wouldn't think oh my god this language is terrible right I wouldn't think oh they don't make any sense I'm not gonna spend time with this I would sit down I'm entering a new country keep an open heart and mind record in the final words journal what you hear see and feel it will be your private travel log about that other place have eyes for the sacred if possible imagine that the territory you have entered is sacred ground despite the terrible loss or the loss that might be looming before you validate your loved ones words and experiences repeat back what your beloved has said and let the person know you've heard them one pretty common thing we've heard or in the data that we've got is someone saying something like I need my passport you can say come on really you're in bed right now you know what no where are you going where are you headed my dad said to me my modality is broken technically as a linguist I could tell you that that's nonsense but doesn't it make sense somehow so when you can encourage engage in that world engage be a student of the language again you're in a new country when you can write it down ask questions with authenticity and curiosity tell me more and assume your loved one can hear you even when they're unresponsive or quiet let the dying person know how deep your love goes and savor silence one of my favorite stories of you know of the stories that we've gathered was from one woman and she felt such a loss understandably because she and her mother used to have the most amazing conversations together and that way and just you know we got a great communication and rapport and in those final days the mother became much less responsive so this woman decided this one day she was going to walk into the room and imagine she could communicate with her mother she went deep into silence she opened her heart and she just said mom I'm with you it was totally silent but she sat there in prayer and our meditation or just silence and savored it so then a nurse came in and said everything okay you need lunch and then the mother who is still I mean relatively lucid I mean she was unresponsive at the time but she opened her eyes and she said I've been having the most wonderful conversation with my daughter it's a mystery but it seems to hold a lot of truth so those those were some of the guidelines I gave in terms of entering this territory and I want to also say any of my this PowerPoint tonight please feel free at the end there's my email just email me I'll be glad to send it to you and if you want it as a reference for yourself I didn't want to print out paper and do that that's my dad you see resemblance this is Morton Felix this is this was both he's still living obviously in in my heart and my memory my dad was a New Yorker New York he was not a religious person he was Jewish as I'm Jewish and they used to say I don't believe in all that God stuff I'm a gastronomical Jew right for him that was I give me a corned beef sandwich cream soda some coleslaw and I'm in heaven that's my idea of prayer and I say that because when my father started talking about angels ten days before he died my head spun because this was not a man who would ever think of angels you know he was like oh yeah there's an afterlife at six feet under with the worms right that was sort of my dad so that's my dad my mom when they got married and mommy want to say hi that's my mom there and that's them for their 50th wedding anniversary still very much in love an important part of their life together as my mother's an artist and my father was so proud of her work and he would carry boxes to the art exhibitions for her so what happened is three weeks before I guess this dying process began he walked out the front door of our house in I guess his underwear sweatpants on a January night cold night walked downstairs this was not typical behavior from my father and walked down University Avenue and when the police came up to this disoriented 77 year old he said I'm bringing these boxes to the art exhibition for my wife's art show sorry sir you know I don't know what you're talking about and they you know took him brought him to the hospital but what my father said that seems so bizarre and so unique I came to discover is common in the language of the dying oftentimes people begin to announce some big event is coming and it's an event closely associated with their lives right so a golfer may announce the big golf tournament or a dancer may announce the big dance and we'll talk more about that in detail so what I'm gonna do is just talk about some of my father's final words to give you a taste no pun intended of my dad's my dad's words and then we'll move into the categories we began to find through the final words project there's so much so in sorrow again that's technically nonsense right now I want to point out that the words I'm gonna share with you these are it's not that my father with some you know beds you know he wasn't he was a genius he wasn't a dying I mean there's this language is typical to so many people as they're passing if you keep your ears open it's amazing the jewels and oftentimes it's hard because we're so wrapped up in the health piece of it you know what's going with their health and this but if you have the opportunity and I know we don't always to open your ears to the language it will oftentimes deeply move you in and I think touch you there is so much so in sorrow so and so repetition is very common when you're packing for Las Vegas better bring the oxygen tent it's nonsensical right however there is a pattern and when you one of the things that's great about science or collecting data is you can start to see patterns so while this seems totally ridiculous on one hand the truth is that people start talking about some kind of big trip coming up and guess what my father was he was a gambler so of course he was talking about Las Vegas right my mom might be talking about Tasahara for the big trip right so it depends on who the person is I mentioned this one before Jack was someone who passed on before him I can't reach Jack my modality is broken again sheer nonsense as a little you know but it makes a lot of sense somehow Lisa you were right about the angels that was 10 days before he died he was sleeping and I used to I was more kind of woo woo and believed in angels and stuff and my dad looked up at me and he pointed he said oh my you were right about the angels this also we've come to find is very common introductory offer stores closing this is paradoxical language right is contradictory and one of the thing that's interesting I don't know how many of you familiar with life after life by Dr. Raymond moody near death experiences well people who have near death experiences who die for a short period of time then come back and speak of their experiences one of the things that's most common is paradoxical language so they'll say something like wow I never felt as alive as when I was dead what it felt like five minutes but it felt like an eternity what there was no space but I went through this big tunnel what there's paradoxical language and when you look at the language of those who are dying there's a lot of paradoxical language like introductory and closing right open closed which to me as a language is intriguing because of course we don't see that as much in our day-to-day life there are so many people in here I don't have time to talk to all these people I'll come back to that in a minute this is very interesting Alice he was talking to his secretary and editor on the phone a few days before he died this is very interesting Alice you know I've never done this before and this sentence or these two senses are what got me hooked to this research because I asked myself what the heck is this this why didn't he say you know dying is very interesting you know I've never died before why didn't he say that what is that this and this is called non-referential language you don't know what the person's referring to this non-referential language is very common an end of life Roger Ebert the critic do any of you remember him as he was on his deathbed he turned to his I mean he didn't speak it because he couldn't speak but he wrote down it's all an illusion this is all a hoax and if you know Ebert that doesn't seem quite like his character right he was very sort of again earth earthy and fact-driven but non-referential three days before my dad died he said the angel said enough that's it enough no one's to blame go now three days left this is from a man who didn't believe in angels and guess what three days later he passed on so from looking at the final words it's not uncommon that people seem to know we recently had a death in our family and our it was my uncle and he waited until the anniversary the anniversary the wedding anniversary of the woman who is the love of his life so he could give her one kiss goodbye people seem to know on some level and if you keep your ears and open ears open and heart open oftentimes you can get some clue as to when someone might be ready to pass not always but sometimes hurry up get me down please one of the things we've heard from people have had near-death experiences the first part of the near-death experience is people describe coming up out of their bodies and they can actually hear what's going down people repeat verbatim the conversations the doctors are having oh my god we just lost her right and they hear it all one woman who described hearing when she was in a coma and she was really just going they were saying oh my god she's gonna be a vegetable or she's dying if not she'll be a vegetable and she was really insulted it's like no you know but those words people hear them people hear them and the most amazing research and it was done by very reputable researcher at University of Connecticut Dr. Kenneth ring he studied people who were blind okay and the majority of them over 85% by since birth and when they had this near-death experience and were out of their bodies guess what happened they could see some of them had never seen their own bodies before and they and for the first time in their lives they could look down and there are stories where they could even describe the doctor's tie like what was in it what is going on here right he did Dr. King calls it transcendental awareness there was some kind of awareness that goes beyond goes above us you know consciousnesses seems to be non-local at least from this research so one of the things in final words that's consistent with this description of leaving your body is people start here they are the line in bed flattice could be and they're saying I'm moving up you're not moving up I'm moving up some people you hear descriptions of I'm going back I'm going back I'm going back come on you're lying in bed something's moving right so when you start getting data of you know dozens of people describing moving up or moving down and moving to the side is compelling to me it you know it's been very pretty remarkable my dad's final word she was she was fortunate enough that my dad was still speaking to the very end so he could offer to her and say thank you I love you not everyone is able to hear those words but there are other other ways as I mentioned earlier you could feel and be connected at end of life without the language singing is one way so as I saw this collection of words now of course this was before I established the final words project so I heard these words out of context but I was like oh my goodness this is crazy what is going on here and one of the things I noticed that there was nonsensical language right these nonsense statements and then when my dad started talking about the trip to Las Vegas there was something in me that thought oh maybe that's a metaphor for dying the art exhibition so I noticed that he was speaking in metaphors and nonsense and then every once in a while he'd say to me Lisa could you get me a glass of water literal language concrete and so you know when people often the most common things people will say is oh it's just the medications you know it's just making people all weird yeah and no and the yeah and no is that you see the same patterns of language no matter what the meds are you see what I'm saying so in a way even though we didn't control for medications if you see them across the board the same kinds of things and you think hmm the other thing which will go into more detail in a second is people when they're in certain states before dying seem to be able to move in and out of seeing angels and so forth or speaking in metaphoric ways and then they will come back to very literal language and that ability to move back and forth could not happen just on medications you see what I'm saying there are indeed the nurses told me yes there are definitely times that people affected by meds I'm not denying that but that there are certain visionary states and things that happen where you see this ability to go back and forth which is a very different kind of thing and that's visionary and we'll we're gonna get to that in a minute so the thing that I became curious about is did the changes in my father's language sort of track some kind of change in consciousness I couldn't help it ask that especially when he started talking about angels so one thing we know about language is this is continuum literal language it's a rock y'all with me right rock we get it we all know we're talking about rock right metaphorical language is a heart of stone do I really have a stone in my heart no but it's a metaphor and it integrates what they say often is kind of left and right brain you know it's image with language combined metaphor and then you have nonsense and there's been some research to show that these different parts of the brain different parts of the brain are activated when people use different language so literal engages regions of the brain associated with literal and analytical thinking and you know these terms left brain right brain they're they're imprecise but just give us a general mapping so to speak metaphorical language what we've seen engages both left and right brain hemispheres there's a making the pictures the more holistic kinds of functioning along with more analytical so it's both hemispheres and nonsensical when people start speaking nonsense we have found that that part of the brain that's activated when they're making beautiful music is the part that's that's activated during nonsense so you know one of the things I began to wonder is I wonder if as we're dying our brains move towards a more musical mystical right brain state and the language begins to reflect that through the nonsense but this is all I've had some neuroscientists say that's possible but this is all conjecture and imagination right now so do the changes in my dad's speech reflect physical changes associated with transcendental states of consciousness could it be that as our brains are shifting and changing and dying we're moving towards new states of consciousness so so 2014 I established the final words project with dr. Raymond moody who coined the term near-death experience I went to a seminar he did right after my dad passed on and the third day of the seminar Raymond said you know I've been wanting to study final words and I've been looking for a linguist who'd want to partner with me I said thanks dad I'm on I'm so and since then I've been working with Raymond moody there and moved to Georgia to do that so do we die as we live to some degree yes or at least in the language the metaphors symbols and nonsense of final words are often rooted in the personal and lifetime narrative of the person dying often you know there are exceptions but often so here's an example from one daughter my dad had been a roofing contractor and carpenter during his life and my father's bedside when he was dying he would awaken and look over at me and smile so big and he told me they had all these kitchenettes over there there were miles and miles of them and he would be helping to build them he certainly was having an amazing time during his passing away judging from the smile and excited look in his face when he would wake up now here's just another example you would never want to take away the wonder that's going on for that man by saying come on you're in a hospital dad there's something going on and we could take off our shoes step right into his reality with him some more examples Jeffrey Holder the choreographer Leo Holder his son shares the final words of his father arms two three four turn two three four swing two three four down two three four and then each of his last poets my father these weren't his final final words but some he said he said I see interim spaces of poems it's like a co-an you know you know it is not like a co-an wow in the room space that's pretty deep Jack Spicer another poet my vocabulary did this to me one thing we found in our our research is that the four sums come up so there might be a three some and they're looking for a fourth and this comes up you know there are these three guys and oftentimes they're already passed away Joe Frank and Bill's there and they need a fourth or in poker they're telling me I need to come and sit down beside them and smoke and drink and I just think I'd rather stay in my chair right like this but they tell me now I have no choice I got to play in the big poker game guess I'm just gonna have to join them okay maybe it's meds maybe it's meds affecting him but what you'll what we often see is when you write this stuff down there's what I call sustained narrative here they might be saying the guys are inviting me to the poker game and then three days later if you track everything well they've just put the chips down I think I'm gonna have to fold right and you notice because if you hear this stuff in isolation it's just like oh come on really what are you talking about whatever but if you track it over time there's this amazing narrative not always but sometimes are often that he evolves the big dancer dinner now that'll be me that'll be me on my deathbed I'll be talking about the big dance get me my dancing shoes you may take yours off beside me but I'm putting mine on the big dancer dinner alright this woman shared my mother asked me to bring her best dressed in shoes to the hospital because she was attending a grand ball that night and would be so happy to see me there she woke up in the middle of the night and started getting dressed in a long gown that was in the back of her closet now some people of course won't be able you know be much more unresponsive everyone's different but in this case she was sitting at her dressing table putting on jewelry makeup Nana said I'm getting ready for the big dance then she lay down and died okay so another thing that's not uncommon if people will start talking about changes in the weather again a metaphor that some big change is coming the tide is turning the reservoirs are filling the storm is coming do you think the rain is coming these are all opportunities for conversation yeah it looks like the tide is turning tell me a little bit about what you see what you're feeling maybe we can get you you know I don't know if they want to vote maybe they don't want to vote so one of the other common things at the end of life is hearing about the big journey some kind of trip is taking place and I do want to say before I continue because I forgot to mention Maggie oh I'm just like Patricia Kelly and Maggie did I do you know their name Maggie Callahan and Patricia Kelly final final gifts anyone know that book yeah I really want to make sure that I acknowledge them because I came in and did more research on the language and they also had similar findings on certain pieces of it so I just want to say acknowledge their work because it was foundational for me and one of the things they talked about is the importance of the journey metaphor the euphemism of death as a journey is almost universal languages around the world so now we're beginning to get samples from people from different countries and even different you know different religions so I just got something from Punjabi and the father started talking about an airplane the big airplanes gotta go cut on so the suitcase is packed I have to go the car is packed where are the keys Jeddah I need to get to my Jeddah you hear that plane going over is that coming okay that's the coming of day the trolley is near in the story of the Jeddah the wife was arguing with the husband I need to get my Jeddah honey you can't drive now and the nurse came in and said you know what sir we're gonna get that car all gas up and ready for you you know and that because she was comfortable existing in this other world another thing that's common and this is even on web MD okay it's even part of the understanding in the medical profession is that generally 72 hours if not before and or laughter you start seeing takeaway figures mothers brothers even angels people show up sometimes animals might show up to as some kind of ushering the person and some of the transcripts we saw were so remarkable because the person who is dying would start being conversation with someone an unseen loved one so one daughter was talking how the mother was going Earl is here Earl is here and talking to Earl and then going back to the daughter yes she she was like going between the two worlds so pretty again things I had never expected to discover the angels said enough and all the language of departure another thing that's common is people will often say I want to go home I want to go home sometimes people do they want to go back to their familiar bed and they want to go home but sometimes they're talking about another kind of home right another kind of destination and whatever that destination might be whatever home might need to them you may say what is home to you you know what's home and find out but that's as you get closer to dying I think it's repetition repetition repetition oh wow oh wow oh wow one of the markers of the end-of-life language is repetition I just got a sample in last week from someone this one someone was proud of being a skeptic no religious you know she was very you know she was a very rational academic and she said the last words were I am I am I am the great I am this whole idea of pieces comes up a lot things being in pieces or broken which makes sense right because it's probably anyway it makes sense to me it's all in one piece it's all in one piece it's all in one piece what you see in different pieces it's all in one piece and it's not uncommon in end-of-life language to hear sort of unifying themes people talking about bringing things together in one way or another oh more more more worlds and worlds so profound so powerful it's time to get up get up get up remember I was talking about that thing about rising this woman's was saying to I think it was her niece it's time to get up get up get up so I want to talk just a minute about nonsense because as a linguist I I know that we have this strange relationship to nonsense on one hand Dr. Seuss has sold you know how many books Dr. Seuss has sold millions right Alice in Wonderland in one way we love nonsense and in another way it's scary to hear and I think oftentimes we use the word nonsense pejoratively when I use the word nonsense I don't at all and one of the things I really invite people to do is to whatever language you may hear from someone at end of life to not be afraid of the nonsense to not be afraid one nurse I interviewed told me in my country Trinidad the nonsense people speak before dying is called traveling so I think how much time I want to respect Kate's time here 10 more minutes great so as I mentioned before on the paradoxical nonsense I'm gonna prepositional nonsense remember I was saying people talk about going up I want to pull those down to earth somehow I don't really know no more earthbinding help me down the rabbit hole hurry up get me down please it's the end I've got to get down to earth help me no wait a minute you're one stop from real hope which means one stop from real hope I'm living between places would like to make my place mark that other place remarkable again just very rich language and I think we've only beginning to I think we've only begun this study I think it's so rich I had mentioned before non-referential language is very common in end-of-life and I've also read it's common with Alzheimer's but that's not yeah I don't have as much knowledge about that so here's just some examples again this is very interesting I've never done this before it is very beautiful over there one woman it was in a coma came out to look at her loved ones and said too bad I cannot tell you tell you of all of this I tell you all of this it's all a hoax it's not what you think it's all an illusion so I mentioned before how common it is to have deathbed visitors there are so many people in here if you may recall from earlier from my dad I don't have time to talk to all these people so one of the researchers I work with most closely is William Peters and Santa Barbara anybody know him shared crossings he's a therapist who does beautiful work with shared death experiences more and people are reporting this experience of maybe being hundreds of miles away thousands even from someone who's dying or they might have a dream or get a pain in their heart or have some kind of experience where they are makes no sense but they're not with that person locally but they but non-locally this seems to be shared consciousness and he I think he has 500 people now and his book is coming out in the next year and a half but one of the things happened to me and I didn't know at the time anything about shared death experiences I was I was teacher I didn't I hadn't done any work but what happened with my dad I think it was about 10 days before he passed I woke up at 315 in the morning and you know those digital clocks they're red they're that red so I looked I woke up and I said to my husband and I was in Napa my dad was in Berkeley at the time and I said guy I just feel like there's presence in the room do you know that feeling when you know someone's standing in the room with you and I said wow this is bizarre I just feel like the room is thick with people and maybe my dad's dying or something and my husband very sweetly said let's lovely honey let's go back to sleep you know whatever so 326 I went back to sleep the next day I came to visit my mom and I said you know how's dad doing and she said oh he's doing okay but the strangest thing happened about 315 in the morning well what's that please start talking about all these people in the room with him and he didn't have time to talk to all these people and David Kessler has a route has a book called well part of it is crowded rooms this whole thing it's not that uncommon it's not not super super common but it's not uncommon that people as they're dying start talking about their room being filled up with a lot of people don't you see him there there he is that came from a man talking to his children don't you see him there's my father there he is my mom was speaking to my stepdad who died a few years ago she was telling me how much better she felt when she saw him here's mom I have to go Peter Fenwick wrote the book the art of dying and he does a tremendous amount of research and reporting of these kind of takeaway figures too if you want to know more that many people now have done this so it's out there the research is out there my father died on a Friday morning he spent the entire Wednesday before that talking sometimes out loud sometimes muttering under his breath to a whole variety of people he had known throughout his life and was the most amazing thing I've ever seen another thing that's common is what I call hybrid sentences or nonsense someone will talk about something that's in the present moment and then about something that's unseen okay get me my checkbook I have to pay at the gate I need my pearls for the dance tonight help me down the rabbit hole please massage my feet right real feet but the rabbit hole is that real is our imagination is it another dimension that I can't tell you get my camera someone who didn't use iPhone get my camera I need to take a picture of this they left the ladders but the ladders are too short to go up there where are my glasses and computer I have to get to work visions versus hallucinations I mentioned this a little bit but if anyone's interested in this area Christopher Kerr doctor back east did very extensive research on visitations and appearances of bedside figure figures and he's convinced that this is not about meds that there are truly visionary experiences and again in MD a lot of the nurses I spoke with just matter of fact we said oh yeah people are seeing people are seeing they're deceased and the doctors now are speaking much more openly about this and they're having experiences doctor Jeff O'Driscoll and Jeffrey else Olson had a remarkable experience when Jeffrey Olson who is driving fell asleep at the wheel tragically had an accident that killed his wife or you know his wife and his small child and but when he went to the hospital the doctor saw the apparition of his wife and the wife was saying don't give up and Jeff he's going to make it so this doctor was very brave to come out and speak this way because unfortunately we still have kind of a division between these kinds of experience in medical science there's no need to be a division right all right let's see I'll wrap this up I'm gonna so we know that nonsense is an important part of the language of NDE's and end of life and as I mentioned before 85% of blind respondents came to be able to see during the NDE's or OBE's I know I could see and I was supposed to be blind and I know I could see everything it was very clear when I was out I could see details and everything so one of the things that I proposed is is it nonsense or a nuisance and what I invite all of you to think about when you're with someone you love who may be passing just imagine that maybe it's a nuisance and not nonsense and keep your ears and hearts really open thank you oh and please feel free to oh yeah contact me for free PowerPoint and if you have any stories you'd like to share thank you sorry Kate thank you Lisa yes I am final words project yeah yeah great we'll hold questions and we'll hold questions until after the program our second speaker is Kate Munger Kate is the founder of threshold choir for over 40 years she has devoted herself to creating collaborative models for spirited group singing joyful community building and deep fellowship through rounds and parts singing I'm gonna ask Jane and Heather to start I mean Chelsea to start passing we're gonna give you something Kate has written hundreds of singable swing in and deep songs the reminders of our best inclinations and intentions and are sung to accompany our lives in 2000 she founded the threshold choir and today there are 220 threshold choirs all over the world for choral singers who are called to sing at the bed sides of people who are dying in a coma newborns children in hospital and with folks who are grieving or in horror incarcerated in honoring this innovative mission the threshold choir has reimagined what true service can look like healing the giver as it offers comfort presence and ease for the receiver now retired from the business of the threshold choir Kate lives works and sings along the shores of tamales bay monthly at San Quentin and most recently in Chico to survivors of the campfire in paradise Kate will be selling and signing her CDs tonight it's called walking walking each other home for $15 and you can get that after the program please welcome Kate monger thank you all so much for coming tonight it's a pleasure to be here with you Janet thank you very much it's as exciting yes I did start the threshold choir 19 years ago after an experience of singing at a bedside of a friend of mine who was dying 10 years before that by the end of the afternoon singing at his bedside I was convinced that singing was the way one of the best ways to communicate calm and peace at a bedside of someone who's dying I think before I say anything more I'd love to sing with you that's my best way of communicating and even though you have a sheet of paper in your hand I'm going to teach you a song that's not on it because I like to see your eyes the lyrics for this song are from Alice Walker and the lyrics are even as I hold you I am letting go I'll sing it and you can join in even as I hold you I am letting go all there is even as I hold you the threshold choir members on this side of the room so I'm gonna ask them to start even that's very typical of a song that we would bring to a bedside it's short the lyrics are beautiful and repetitive and help someone do something they've never done before go somewhere they've never been before experience something that comes at the end of just about every life I guess so I think I was on to something because when I started the first of now 200 choirs 220 choirs it caught on big as you can imagine in the Bay Area and by the end of five years there were I think 200 singers just in the San Francisco Bay Area and then it has spread widely Canada Mexico Germany United Kingdom all across the United States in a way I think this is a normal human activity and in many cultures singing someone as they're singing to someone as they're dying it's very commonplace and I think we are rediscovering it here in our technological society but I think it's really important and part of what we do at a bedside is empower families and caregivers to sing for their loved ones and to remember that this is precious precious holy time and rather than scurry around and make tuna casseroles with potato chips sprinkled on top and clean the bathroom for the fourth time maybe it's time to sit down with your loved one read the poetry that they loved tell the stories from your childhood if it was an aging parent but maybe it's time to sit quietly and enjoy the unfolding of this precious sacred time let's sing again look at you are not alone I wrote this song in the eleventh year of the Threshold Choir and I wish that I had written it right away because in a way it says all that we can know about being at a bedside we try to know as little as possible about diagnosis how long it's gonna take for someone to die we try to know very very little so that we're really fresh with fresh and present with what we're offering this song goes you I'm here beside you you all sing it really quietly the choir will sing the harmony parts here we go you and then we let silence happen after we sing which is one of the hardest things to do there is this human tendency to want to be busy and want to fill fill the space but silence shared silence at this sacred time is it's a gift to everyone I'm imagining that some of you might be thinking I couldn't do that I couldn't sing at a bedside I would break down I would cry it's probably if you think of that it's possible that that's the truth as choir members we we know that this is a place where we belong where we are happy and equipped and skilled to bring something very precious to bedside so not everybody can that doesn't mean that occasionally a tear doesn't trickle down our cheeks we try to avoid heaving sobs in our country at this point so many people are so tuned into television and movies and you know the the technological society that we're in that sometimes we have to encourage people to feel the emotions that they're actually feeling at a death bed so we hope that that our presence you know even with a discrete tear will be an inspiration to a family member to come to some kind of place of forgiveness at the approaching end of life of someone in their family a lot of our songs talk about forgiveness and not enough of them yet I'm I still haven't written my favorite song about forgiveness yet but there is one on your sheet and it goes all is forgiven move on all is forgiven move on there it is all is forgiven move all is forgiven move on so we go to bed sides in groups of two or three or sometimes four we go whenever we're asked we hope that people will ask us with plenty of time so that we can get to know the person and the family that we're singing for sometimes that happens sometimes it doesn't sometimes we sing for one somebody one time sometimes we sing for them for nine months our services are free we get referrals from hospice chaplains hospitals doctors this I don't sing at bed sides all that much anymore since I'm retired and I live out on the coast but this last week I was in town in San Rafael doing errands and I got a call to sing at a bedside while I was in a car wash and I still had cell service so I said I'll be there in 20 minutes and the contrast between being in the car wash and then going to the bedside of a very elderly woman whose daughter had just had a baby and the daughter was sitting at her mother's bedside giving her the most beautiful sacred attention and love I think having just had a baby she was so grateful for what her mother had given her and three of us sang for about a half an hour at this absolutely holy place you know you could drive down the street in the town of Nevada and not know that somebody was dying in that house so the contrast between the car wash and the bedside was profound for me and I found myself thinking whoever thought this up good on them I actually hope my goal for the threshold choir even though I'm retired is that we all recognize that we could that this is a human activity this is what our tribe does for each other when we're struggling and so I'm hoping that they don't have to be threshold choirs after a while we just all can do this for one another and not even necessarily when there's a death when we're struggling I'm hoping that in my lifetime the power of the human voice on on human lives is understood and quant quantitatively understood because I we wouldn't have these amazing voices if there wasn't a tremendous power in them to heal to affect cells to move fluid I just think it's I hope I live long enough let's see let's sing again thank you for letting me use your music one of the places I love to sing the most is at San Quentin and I met an inmate there who is now out and who is very ill that I wrote a song for and it's soften my heart and the song goes like this soften my heart soften my heart soften my heart soften my to try it soften my off in my translated into Spanish sorry here we go suavey sando me corazon suavey sando me corazon suavey sando me corazon suavey sando me corazon do one more time so suavey sando me corazon so we cuddle right up close if we can to the the head area of whoever we're singing for we bring our own chairs so there's no furniture moving we just come in and sit down and we we try to replicate the distance between a mother's mouth and a baby's ear and so we are singing so soft that our gauge for how soft we sing is a closed mouth hum so let's sing soften my heart as a closed mouth hum it's not very loud and it's as loud as we need to be we're sitting so close it's it's a it's a it's a question of you know we we don't want to direct the person's thought process that we're singing for but we want we want to be there to catch them and to support them wherever they are and we have all kinds of lyrics of songs very few are well only one that I can think of is very directive and I have probably only sung it at four bed sides but when I have it's been really vital and the lyrics are it's all right you can go your memories are safe with us and I the only way I would ever sing this song is if I if I thought it was a good idea and I asked someone in authority at that bedside you know a family member especially if the person was not visibly conscious the first time this happened was at a bedside of a woman named Margie and she hadn't spoken in three days and her family was all gathered around her and she was apparently comatose and I we sang for her for a while and then I asked one of her sons would it be appropriate if we sang it's all right you can go your memories are safe with us and he said yes and we did and when we were done Margie went made no noise but mouth the word wonderful I asked Martha and Cindy if they would come up and give you the sound of a trio what what a bedside trio might sound like so what you just saw there was the inevitable editing that various choirs do when there's a word that they'd like it like to have it be different so the original is may you be healed the local San Francisco threshold choir likes to sing may you be held and since we're singing it's fine to change the words it we don't change them on paper because we have beautiful agreements with the songwriters that will honor their music but at a bedside if the words need to change they do San Francisco threshold choir was the third choir that I started I started the first one in the East Bay the second one in Marin County my home county and San Francisco in the peninsula where the third and fourth so the San Francisco threshold choir is been going since 2001 we have had a long and very treasured association with Laguna Honda Hospice with what's that hospital in Laguna Honda Hospital yeah and also with Zen hospice project any other places you guys want to mention coming home hospice on Diamond Street so where's that to now hospice or is it a rehab center okay so if you if you were to want to have the threshold choir come or if you know that someone would like it we love the invitation to come from the person receiving the singing it's best if it doesn't come from a child of someone who wishes their parent might have been someone who would have liked to have been sung to we try not to have our singing be a punishment and you would go to the website www.thresholdquire.org and go for the locations drop down find the San Francisco threshold choir and call them or email them and then someone would call you back and explore what the what the specifics are of the situation we would ask the condition of the person we were coming to sing their spiritual practice if any we are not a religious organization we feel strong that most churches take care of their parishioners adequately but the people that don't go to church so much are left in the lurch and the people that think spirituality happens in trees and in earth and on the planet so we have a lot of songs that speak to that kind of spirituality yeah let me sing you a quickly one that that fits that bill it goes and he where I am can be holy forest anywhere I am can be sacred see peace and quiet can be anywhere I am peace and quiet within me we also try to be sensitive and educated about multicultural issues when we're invited to sing in another language with a different kind of approach we have songs in Mandarin Vietnamese Cantonese help me Spanish Hebrew and we're always looking for more in different languages yes and we have some we have a song that is the phrase that starts every paragraph of the Quran I'm wondering if any there are I think six choir members here and I'm wondering if any of you have anything you'd like to say let me tell you one thing you'll see Karen stand up and Peggy stand up on our website on the front page Peggy and Karen are featured singing to a man at the Zen hospice project just before it closed named Luca who recognized that getting accurate video of what we do at bed sides is really difficult often I mean mostly impossible thank you and he offered he said would you like to have to let me let them film you and KQED was right there and they did a beautiful job of a four-minute video of what it looks like at a bedside and Karen and Peggy were there so do any of you want to say anything these are very nice people if that's possible we would take your word for it we would take your word for it and we would then make sure that it was something that he would enjoy we can tell immediately if if we're supposed to be at a certain bedside yeah yeah we're always looking for more though yes there are a few YouTube's but look at our website that's the official video yeah let's sing one last song together look at walking each other home these are the words of Ram Dass just walking each other home just walking each other just walking each other just walking each other home you all sing with me we'll sing really quiet so we can hear the choir choir we are just walking each other before we sing it one last time I have this very strong feeling that there are a number of you in this room who feel drawn to this work and I'm just wondering if if transportation and whatever was no object how many of you feel like this is something you'd like to do volunteering you know I'm not surprised I felt a positive positive vibe thank you let's sing it one more last time and we'll have a time for more questions afterwards I sure would would you guys stand up and come and stand with me yeah I will thank you very much thank you all of you thank you