No Time for Guitar

Today, I went to visit someone who seemed to be a bit of crisis. She has dementia, so she get confused. This is a common symptom in any dementia diagnosis and can result in a number of behaviors. Sometimes, people are quite happy with their situation. I call these people "pleasantly confused" in my documentation. Sometimes, however, they get to be very anxious. Imagine yourself in a place you don't know, surrounded by people you don't recognize, and you have no idea how to leave. I think that would definitely make me anxious. Usually, I find the best thing to do in this situation is refocus their attention or just distract them long enough to "reset" their emotions. This brings me to my client today.

When I arrived, she was sitting in the common area. The client was really tearful, crying out, and working herself into frenzy. She had a CNA next to her, trying to calm her down, and looking rather exasperated herself. I offered to sit with her and, before I could even get my guitar out, the client grabbed my hands and I could not get loose. The CNA turned to me and said, "She's got quite a grip today." Occasionally, this will happen and I've learned to "roll with the punches." I started to sing and she initially stopped to listen. It didn't take long, though, for her to get back to crying. I realized that if I sang 2 or 3 songs and alternated between them quickly, I could keep her attention. I sang "Shenandoah", "Amazing Grace", and "Red River Valley" while alternating verses. It was really comforting to see her really start to settle down

When I left, she was sitting calmly in her wheel chair. The facility staff came to get her for lunch and said, "I don't know what you did and I don't know how long it will last but thank you!" It's nice to see some very observable signs that what I'm doing helps so quickly and drastically sometimes!

Once a Conductor...

Wow. It has been way too long. I guess it's safe to say that I've lost track of time. Some exciting things in my life have been happening. One of those things, and a main reason that I am adding this post, is that I was interviewed by The Songwriting Podcast recently. If you are new to my blog from that episode, welcome! I promise I'll make a point to update this more regularly!

Not to mince words, I'd like to just tell a story that way I usually do [or did, as it were]. Last week was the end of the month. As anybody in the health care field knows, this is the time when it gets a little hectic. I have monthly frequencies for all my clients and, when things work out well, I get everybody seen and do not feel rushed at all. Last month was one of those months. It worked out really well, then, that this particular story comes from my last visit of the month.

My client in this session was a long-time band and choir conductor. He claims to have only taught for 23 years, but I know that he did much longer than that. Many students have been musically trained by this man and now I get a chance to improve his life in a nursing home with music. Being a vocal trainer, but also having dementia, I need to be sure that the songs I'm choosing are songs that are both familiar but not too easy. I end up choosing a lot of hymns, but also mixing it up with some folk tunes. I have to choose carefully because, when he sings, he sings loud and proud. I could liken his voice to that of the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. Even if he doesn't remember the words. I close the door, but I'm sure that does little to muffle our music to the ears of the other residents.

Aside from the song choice, I also need to be careful where I sit because, as a conductor, my client gets very exuberant with his gestures. This, I think, is the key to our sessions. He becomes who he has been for a long time. He directs again. I make sure I follow his tempo, volume, and entrance cues while playing and this seems to bring back a life into his eyes again. Needless-to-say, he is always conducting forte [loud, for all you non-music geeks out there] and just as expressive as we can muster. It's really neat to see this little man become a giant in a sense. His actions are broad, his face expressive, and his posture upright. It's a very distinct transformation.

I guess when you've made a living with music [either professionally or not], once you're hooked into music, you always will be.

Reaffirmation

My apologies for not posting recently. I guess life caught up with me a bit the last few weeks and I didn't get to the blog. I'll try my best to not let it happen routinely!

This last week was rare in that I didn't have a ton of people to see at the end of the month, so I could take my time with each client I did see. One client in particular was especially enjoyable. She's one of those people who is either in a great mood or extremely anxious. She was in a good mood that day, but had been pretty anxious most of this week. We talked a lot about how she could cope when she is anxious and she stated that she will close her eyes, pray, and then sing silently to herself. I asked her what she sings and she stated that she sings old hymns. That lead to a nice time of reminiscing and discussion of her faith. She spoke of times when her faith has helped her cope with other things in her life. She was really talking a lot, which was fun for her and gave me a lot of good information.

I finally got into the music portion of our session by suggesting that we sing some songs that she can easily recall when she gets anxious again. She thought that was a good idea and I played and sang hymns with her that recalled portions of our conversation. "Nearer My God to Thee", "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", and "God Be With You 'Til We Meet Again" were some of her favorites that we identified as some that she could use and enjoy. While I sang, she stared at a picture of Jesus praying very intently. It was quite touching to see.

I guess the main thing I took from this session is just an affirmation of something I think we all know on some level. Regardless of faith or religion, our spiritual well-being is drastically tied to our sense of quality of life. Take some time this week to explore more how your beliefs affect your current sense of well-being and how you can take care of yourself spiritually today. It may mean praying, reading, taking a walk, talking with a friend, or just sitting quietly for a while. Whatever it means for you, take care of yourself this week!

One More Reason

I met with a fairly new client this week. I've never seen him awake, really. He's always been sleeping or unresponsive. He does have several family members who, although they seem to rarely get along, are very loyal to him and are around pretty much constantly. They are the ones who actually requested my visit this week. They connect very well with the music and are able to release their emotions through singing and talking about their father between songs.

When I got there this time, true to tradition, he was sleeping. He had recently been placed on RLC care, which is a designation we give to people who the nurses feel are imminent, or close to being to it. His family hadn't seen him awake for quite some time. He had 2 daughters with him and they began sharing memories, singing with me, and shedding some tears. Although it was hard emotionally, it was actually why I got in hospice care. Then, the coolest part happened. He started to wake up. When I left, he had his eyes open and he said the only thing I've heard him say: "Thank you, buddy. I enjoyed it." It was really touching to me. It meant that: a] he had heard me and b] he used whatever limited energy he had to let me know my visit meant a lot to him.

I think that people have all heard stories of other people who "come to" for a brief moment when it seems they never will. It's something completely different, though, when you're there to experience it. Chalk it up to another great reason I love my job!

Am I 100?

I was seeing a patient this week that I have had some fun with. This is not going to be one of those really heart-wrenching tales to read this week. This is just one of those sessions that I like to facilitate.

The patient is 100 years old and has dementia. Unlike a lot of patients under those circumstances, however, she is very cheerful and is able to carry a conversation pretty well. The first time I met her, she said, "How old am I?" I honestly didn't know, so I told her so. She said, "Am I 100?" Again, I replied that I don't know. "Well, I sure feel like it!" was her reply. It was very funny. This last session, she agreed to a music therapy session, but said, "I'm not sure what to do for you, though." I told her that I just wanted to share some music with her, but if she wanted to sing with me even just relax with her eyes closed, that was okay. She only sang one one song, but was able to remember all the lyrics to "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."

A majority of my clients are similar to this. Hospice care is not always about big, world-shattering emotional events. A majority of the time, this is a normal thing. The people we see are just that. People. People can be goofy, serious, angry, happy, sad, and sometimes just sleepy. People are almost always the same people they were before they were on hospice care. A diagnosis or prognosis does not start when the medical tests get back. It starts long before, when they can still be themselves. It continues throughout the rest of their life. In the best case scenario, people can remain themselves until the end. That's what I'm trying to help them do.

Wind Beneath My Wings

This week, I met with a client I've had for a while and was trying to get her to open up more. I was hoping we could really process her situation, as it is rather hard. She's in her 50s and has a disease process where she understands what is going on, she's completely aware of her situation, but cannot do anything to stop it. She's at the age where she feels that she should be starting to take care of her parents and helping her son get ready for his wedding, but instead her parents and son are now having to take care of her. It's hard for her to stay in bed when she'd rather be outside, or rather, would rather be anywhere but a nursing home.


She enjoys the music she listened to when she was younger, which happens to be 80s popular music. With that in mind, I pulled out Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings", which you can listen to below.

Before I sang it, I asked her to think about who this song describes for her. After the song was finished, she said, "That's easy. It makes me think of my parents." We began talking about her parents and she was saying how they were such good people and really had tried everything to help her. As she was talking, her expression seemed to show that she was thinking very hard. At one point she stopped and said, "Me being in this situation must be really hard for them, too." I was so glad she made that shift in perspective. Not that she was complaining about herself before, but now it seemed that she was aware that her parents were grieving for her and it helped her to appreciate them that much more. She shared some stories of how they have helped her and then we discussed plans for her to tell them how much they mean to her. 


I don't know if she has or will let them know how much they mean to her, but I know that she really is grateful for them and I just hope they know it.


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New blog to check out is : Bliss Music Therapy. She hasn't updated her blog for a while, but what she has posted is good information!

One More Session

Every once in a while, a nurse gives me a call and asks me to see a client who has taken a quick decline. Many times, patients who need extra support are given an "RLC" or "Radical Loving Care" designation for a short time. This is texted out to everybody in the office so they know who needs the extra help at that time. We all try to make it there, but I'm not always able to be there before they die. Many times, that is the end result of RLC, but sometimes the decline levels off and they may not need they extra support as much as initially thought. On Monday, I got the call before the text was even sent out, so I know it was important for the client and family that I be there, so first thing I did was stop there. This is the client who I spoke of in Play One More. When I got there, there were 3 daughters and some of their children, as well as the client's pastor. That is always a big red flag for me. Pastors always have people to see and things to do, despite all the jokes implying they only work for one hour on Sundays. If a pastor is just sitting in a chair in the dining room, waiting for something to happen, then I always assume something will happen soon. I got set up in the patient's bedroom [she lived in her own home] and invited everyone into the room. I wanted this to be a group session. I wanted to not only help the client relax [something she was not very good at in the past], but also to allow the family to communicate with the client, share stories, and feel the support that they were all providing for each other.

It started off with the family members showing little interest in being a part of music. Despite my encouragement, I was pretty much singing alone to the client. I began to engage the family more by asking them questions, specifically about music and their mother. They all seemed to recall a song she enjoyed, a story of the her dancing, or [for those that were there for my previous sessions] how she would light up during our sessions. This began a nice time of sharing and music. People would talk about songs she liked and I would play the ones I had. While playing, though, only one other person was singing. The only time I got them to sing was on the last song, "Jesus Loves Me." I set up by saying, "I can really feel the love you have for your mother. She's so lucky to have you here with her. This is an important time to spend with her and I know that she knows you're here. I know she's very happy you're with her. Let's sing this one like we're taking her place for a moment, thinking about what she's feeling right now." We started singing and everybody else joined it, tearfully making their way through that familiar tune. Even the pastor was getting misty, which speaks volumes about his connection and dedication to this family. After this, I tried to encourage them, told them to call with any concerns or changes, and left.

The patient died about an hour after I left. I will remember her fondly, as someone who walked in the first time assuming I'd be kicked out and was really welcomed with open arms, both in a literal and figurative sense. I hope Lillian's family knows how much their mother meant to everybody who got to see her.

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New to the music therapy blogosphere is The Traveling Songstress. Check out her new blog and give her some support!

Story - "He Came Through Like Gangbusters"

It seems that my blog, lately, has become mainly a collection of stories from my work. I never really intended it to become so, but I don't think I mind it. I guess sometimes the best way to illustrate what I do is to see [or in this case, read] it in action. I hope that these stories do not sound vain, as I am truly not meaning to boast in myself, but to give a brief glimpse into the world of music therapy and hospice.

That being said, this story happened in my internship at CarePartners Hospice in Asheville, NC. My wife and I still miss it there and we hope to visit again soon, but no real plans. The client I was visiting was named Helen. She was fairly young by hospice standards, only in her early sixties. She and her husband were always welcoming to me, although, if I am going to be honest, they really intimidated me at first. Until that point, I could pretty much assume that the people I visited would want to hear either hymns, country, or Lawrence Welk-style tunes. Helen and her husband, however, loved music from the 60's and 70's. Learning Jim Croce, Chicago, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger was fun, but much different than what I had been playing. I slowly started adding them into my repertoire.


Although every session was pretty good, I vividly remember one session in particular. Helen's husband was not there, although he usually was, and I was enjoying talking with Helen. I steered the conversation to her husband, intending to get her to talk about him and process her anticipatory grief. She felt as though she was leaving him. In a segue, I played "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce and she broke down crying. If this were to happen now, I would feel comfortable confronting it a little more efficiently, but at that time, I was not. I finished the song and we both just sat there, staring at the floor. After what seemed like several minutes, she broke the silence. She explained that "Time in a Bottle" made her think of her husband and she began to explain her emotions. For several years, she said, she wondered whether or not she had made right decision to be with him. Just as she began to regret her decision, she was diagnosed with cancer. Helen said, through tears, that "he came through like gangbusters for me." She knew, after that event, that she had, indeed, made the absolute perfect decision. 


About a week or two later, Helen had a pretty fast decline and was declared "imminent" by her nurse, which means that the rest of her life could most likely be counted in hours, not days. I visited her and it was hard. She was once very full of life, but now she was unresponsive. Her husband, as well as her daughter, were there by her side, and agreed to let me sing for her. I hesitated before leafing past Jim Croce and decided to go for it. I told Helen's husband of our conversation earlier and how much his being there meant to her. As I started to play the song, everyone in the room [myself included], began to cry. We were all going to miss Helen very much. I finished my session and left. She died an hour later.


I guess this still is a strong memory for me, because I'm on the verge of tears again while I recount this story. Tears are not always a bad thing, despite what our culture may say about them. They are not weakness, they are not evil. They are natural, as natural as the love any one person can have for another. They are an outpouring of emotions that cannot be expressed in words, although music may come close. Tears are one way that I know what I do really matters.

One Profound Song

This week, I wanted to write a little about a particular song and how it affects a particular client of mine. This client is fairly young for hospice care and has an uncommon diagnosis. Due to HIPPA, I do not want to divulge too much information, but let's suffice it to say that he has been living with a developmental delay for his whole life. I've never actually gotten a word out of him. In fact, he spends a lot of time in bed, staring at the wall. Still, he deserves the same level of care, if not more, than anybody else.

He's really a sweet guy and he has a very supportive family. When I first started visiting him, the nursing staff told me, "Oh, he'll love having you visit. His favorite song is 'Jesus Loves Me'." So, I led off with "Jesus Loves Me" and he made eye contact with me, moved his head around, and occasionally made a noise, as though trying to sing along. Then I moved to some other "Sunday School"-style songs, but got no response, whatsoever. He simply stared at the wall. I played "Jesus Loves Me" again, and he reacted the same as before. I'm still not sure what it is about that song that affects him on such a base level! I just know that every time I play that song, which is every other song now, he perks up and seems to really interact with me. I don't understand it, but that's what happens.

In some ways, I envy him. Imagine having a connection to a song that was so strong, so ingrained in your being, that it was always fresh, new, and meaningful. In a time when top 40 radio is a constant blur of "old" songs being replaced by new, he is still in love with this song. And what a song to have a connection with! Regardless of your faith system, this song is empowering and validating the person singing it, even if he's singing it in his head. This song tells the singer that they are loved and important. "Jesus Loves Me" does not make stipulations on its love or ability. In fact, it says that when you are weaker, you are loved more! When you break it down, this song is very profound in our day and age. Television, radio, billboards, and music all tell us what we need to do to be better, whether that's looking better, buying nicer things, or being part of some special group. This song is simple, easy to remember, and is packed with love for the singer.

I hope that everyone reading this can find a song that really speaks to them this week. Find it and cling to it because it validates the best parts of you and doesn't care about the rest. No one is perfect, but everyone deserves to feel loved. I think music is one of the best ways to show that. I find that song, listen to it so many times you know it by heart, and live your life with the feeling it gives you.

Choosing the positive, acknowledging the negative

This week I had two very profound experiences. One was positive and one negative. It made it hard to choose, but the negative can be summed up pretty succinctly. Dementia is a terrible disease that robs people of their personalities and humanity. A once very lovely and charming woman, who was once a patient and then was discharged, was readmitted with a dementia diagnosis and now she is a completely different person. It made me quite sad.

However easy it is to focus on the negative, it is imperative that, in hospice care, you acknowledge, but do not obsess, the bad things in life. It is much more rewarding to look for the positive, but it has to be a choice. This leads me to my next experience, just a few days later. I was called in to do a visit for a patient who was actively dying and had loved music her whole life. When I started walking to her room, I found the family in the dining area talking with the hospice nurse and she introduced me to the family. They were very nice, obviously very loving, and mentioned how much the patient loved music, even the great grandchildren who were present. I invited them to join me for a music therapy session if they wanted and they quickly joined me.

Now, here is where I should point out that music therapy sessions with imminent patients and their families are the most rewarding experiences in my experience, but they can be tricky to get into. I played a few songs that the patient received comfort from in previous sessions and everybody listened intently, but there was no sharing, no community in the room. I decided to try something else. I asked the great grandkids if they wanted to sing a few songs for the patient. Their faces, especially the little boy's, lit right up and they requested "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Jesus Loves Me." That resulted in a veritable deluge of reminiscing and laughing. It was really incredible to witness. No body sang with me when I sang, but between songs, the gathering talked about the patient and her influence on a great number of people. The music supported the conversation and the conversation influenced the music. It was a great sharing of love and I was honored to be a part of it.

These little "mountaintop" experiences are what we, as hospice workers, music therapists, and people in general, need to cherish and focus on. The negative is there. It will always be there. But if you look deep enough, the positive will be there too.

Story: In the Hole

I wanted to share a quick story that means a lot to me. It isn't very long or detailed, but was a very uplifting point in my week. It was really a nice way to start the week out for me.

I went to go see a couple this week that have some pretty incredible attributes. The husband is 98 years old and the wife is 102 years old. Some quick math shows that there are 200 years of experience in that one room of their nursing home. Although the wife is unable to communicate, they husband loves to talk and tell stories. Many of those stories, I have heard already from previous visits, but when a person that old is telling you something, you'd better listen! Haha.

I have been providing music therapy sessions for the wife for longer than the husband, as he was not appropriate for hospice services for a while. He would be up and talking and enjoying the session, which mainly consisted of me just playing music to provide positive sensory stimulation and a compassionate presence. There was one session, however, where I found the husband lying in bed and looking about as bad as his wife. Due to the community nature of music, when I provided music therapy for his wife, he received it as well. I sang the old hymns for her that I was told she enjoyed and left.

Flash forward to this week and you'll see the continuation of the story. When I arrived this time, he was very happy to see me. He remembered where I was from and what I was there to do, which, at 98 years old, is quite a feat. He kept telling me about how he remembered me coming to play for him when he was "in the hole." He continued to talk about the time he was "in the hole" between songs for the rest of the session. As I was starting to pack up to leave, he shook my hand and started talking more about that experience when he was "in the hole" and I played music for he and his wife. As he spoke, his eyes lightened and he said, "Your music brought me a little closer to Heaven that day. I thank you for it." It was really a touching moment, especially for an old farmer to admit something like that.

Obviously, that was a great way to start the week. It made me realize [again] that when I'm sharing music, whether in session, in passing, or in concert, that I'm not just sharing it with one person, but anyone who can hear me. The emotions and comfort that a musician puts forth is not meant to be isolated and guarded, but shared with everyone in the room. You may direct your attention to one person, but simply sharing space with someone changes their life a little bit.

Story: Unusual Christmas Request/Response

First off, I want to apologize for my little hiatus lately. Suffice it to say that my wife and I have moved and are having a baby in the very near future. Now, I'm going to try to get back on track.

I had an interesting experience yesterday while doing an assessment. For those of you who aren't familiar with a music therapy assessment, this is what music therapists use to assign goals and objectives for their clients. I assess four different needs to find appropriate goals: social, spiritual, physical, and emotional needs. I usually don't know what I'm getting into right away when I start an assessment, which can be a challenge for me as an introvert. I have to meet new people, figure out how to interact with them, and decipher how I can best help them. This can turn out to be an interesting experience, as this particular story indicates.

I met the gentleman on hospice care who I was assessing and he was basically unresponsive. His wife was sitting in the corner of the room, not by the bed, and I could sense that she was understandably very anxious with the situation. She did not seem to know what to do with herself and vented her anxious energy through talking very quickly and at length with me before we started the assessment about the food that people had been bringing her in the hospital for support. At this point, I was a little worried that I wouldn't actually get to play any music for my client because she would take up too much time. However, I was able to corral her thoughts to music. I mentioned that, around the this time of year, some people like hear holiday music, but that I had other styles like country, hymns, jazz, and traditional folk music. She said, "I don't think he's going to make it to Christmas," and began to choke up. I said, "Well, we could bring him a little Christmas now, if you want to." She jokingly inquired, "You have 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer'? We used to laugh every time that song came on." I did have that song, but have only played it a handful of times for the clients who I know wouldn't be offended by the song. I responded, "I sure do! Want to start out with that one?"

As I started playing it, her mouth began to curl into a little smile, but with very mixed emotions. Her face clearly showed her emotions, but they were very mixed. She seemed to enjoy the song, but then grew sad at the fact that he would not be able to laugh with her when this song came on anymore. She began crying and got up to hold his hand. She sat in the chair near the bed and stroked his hand, cried, and rested her head on the side of the bed. Her grief was evident, but still restrained. At one point, the clients' eyes fluttered a bit as she was talking with him and it filled her with such joy. I told her that the sense of hearing is the last to go and that I'm sure that the client loved to hear her voice. She began talking to him between verses of songs that I would play and it became this beautiful sharing moment between this old couple, these old friends.

Processing the session afterward, I was trying to pinpoint the moment when she began to open up, express her grief, and share with the client. I realized it was during that first verse of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." I would never have chosen that one to kick off the assessment and realized that no other song would have granted me access to that response. No other song would have conjured up such an experience for my client's wife. No other song would have started the process of grief and sharing that I had just witnessed. As I thought of the session, I was reminded that music carries its own powers and emotions, and I am simply there to facilitate that process. I think it was a good lesson for me to learn again. I guess music can do a lot without my help and sometimes, I just need to get out of the way and let it do its work.

Story: Right in the Butt

This week, I have a story. It's by the same patient who stated she planted all the tulips in Holland (http://odeenmusictherapy.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-all-tulips-in-holland.html).

Although she doesn't have dementia as a diagnosis, her memory is poor. She will tell you the same stories from session to session, and sometimes even multiple times a session. She has all the spunk in the world and she'll always point at you and say, "Now, you know me. I ain't lying. I tell it to you straight. If you don't like the truth, get out of the way!" She's also very religious, which makes this story all the more entertaining.

This is the story as I most recently heard it:
Did I ever tell you about the time I met the Pope? I was invited to a banquet in Chicago and the Pope was there. After dinner, the Pope came up to me and we started talking. As we were talking, he started smarting off to me. Now, you know me. I don't take that from anybody. So, I told him he'd better watch his mouth. And you know what he did? He smarted off to me again! So, I kicked him. I kicked him right in the butt. You should have seen the look on his face when I did that! Now, I ain't lying. I tell it to you straight. I don't take smarting off from anybody.

I hope anybody reading this does not take offense to this, or any other stories that I post. In no way am I intending to make fun of the clients I see. I am simply trying to humanize them, and show readers who do not work in hospice, what kind of characters we get. Hospice is not about death, but about life. Death is just a small part of what we work with. Life, such as the life of this particular client, is what gets us hospice workers up in the morning.

Hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend! Make sure you don't smart off to anyone. You never know if you'll get kicked in the butt!

Story: "I'm So Glad I Saw This"

This is just a little, rewarding story from the other day. I went to go see the last client I was going to see yesterday at a nursing home in a small Iowa town. This client has a form of dementia as a hospice diagnosis. She is oriented only to her name and starting to become more and more lethargic. She enjoys pushing herself around the halls in her wheelchair and has maintained a strong faith system through attending the facility worship services. I usually sing hymns with her and have grown fairly used to her singing along on most of the well-known hymns, like "Amazing Grace", "In the Garden", and "The Old Rugged Cross." She doesn't remember all the words, but always the majority of the first verse. When she isn't singing, she has a hard time putting six words together into a coherent order.

Yesterday, when I came for a visit, her daughter was there. I had never met this daughter and learned that she lived about 3 hours away. The daughter only visits every few months, so I was quite excited that he happened to be there. She, however, did not seem to be excited about visiting her mother. I suppose I can empathize. I understand what it's like to visit someone regularly, investing a lot of time and energy into their lives, only to have them ask you the same questions over and over because they don't remember you or what you told them earlier. The daughter seemed to have run out of energy, run out of things to talk about, or was just about to justify leaving. When I entered the room, I introduced myself and what I did and asked if she would stick around for a music therapy session, and she agreed.

From the very first song, my client sang with all the gusto she could muster. She even made hand motions and gestures that reflected the words she was singing. She wasn't waiting for me to start the words for her and, in fact, I had a hard time keeping up with her tempo. Eventually, I just plucked the chords on the downbeat of each measure. I've never heard "Amazing Grace" sung to intensely and deliberately as the well-known hymn was turned into a waltz tempo hymn, and I hung on to my client's every word. She proved this was no fluke, as she did the same for all the songs in the session. Not just the first verse, but sometimes the second, third, and even fourth verse were sung out. I can't help but feel that her session was a way of telling her daughter, "I'm still here. I'm still me. Don't worry about me. I remember you!" After the session, the daughter appeared to be mentally trying to wrap her head around the "performance" she had just witnessed. She looked on the verge of tearing up, but stopped herself and said to me, "I'm so glad I saw this!"

She didn't seem interested in continuing the conversation in a deep fashion and, instead, exchanged pleasant little comments about the power of music and faith. I left the room and went to do my charting and, as I left and walked by the client's room, I heard the client's daughter engaging her mother in conversation about music and faith. I can't be entirely sure about a lot of aspects this story and probably can't take full credit in the experience, but I do know one thing. I know that the daughter meant it when she said, "I'm so glad I saw this!" I'm glad I could give her mother back to her for a short time.

Story: Look Homeward, Angel

This story happened in my internship. I had a client, who I'll call Mary, who was in her late 80s. She had lived a very interesting life, having had several husbands, all of whom were involved in music somehow. Some were leaders of big bands, some were regional DJs, and some of whom just went to as many concerts as conceivably possible. She talked about how she had seen music progress and change throughout her life and, although she had differing views as to its value at times, she was always pleased to see progress. My supervisor, in her great wisdom, told me after hearing about Mary that I could not go into a session with Mary with any pre-composed music. At first it really scared me to think about that. Pre-composed music (meaning anything that's already been written) is pretty much the staple of how I do things. I like to write music, but the idea of improvising music on the spot really intimidated me.

I decided to be open and honest with my client, and said, "I like to write music, Mary, but sometimes I'm afraid I'll just make mistakes trying to hard." Mary looked at me, right in the eyes, and said, "The only mistake you can make is not seeing the potential in your mess ups." That quote might be the single most influential thing someone has said to me.

Later that session, she said to me, "I'm trying to remember a song. I think my husband wrote it. The beginning goes like this: 'Look homeward, angel, and tell me what you see, Do the folks I used to know still remember me.' Do you know it?" Of course I did not know it (she said she wasn't even sure he had ever recorded it) so she said, "Well, then. Make it up." We then wrote this song together, called Look Homeward, Angel. I originally wanted to post a video, but apparently I'm not that technologically advanced (or my computer has been dropped one too many times), so I'll write out the lyrics and let you make up the melody yourself. I think Mary would want it that way.

Look homeward, angel, tell me what you see.
Do the folks I used to know still remember me?

Look homeward, angel, and tell me what you smell.

Are there flowers all around you, more than you can tell?

Look homeward, angel, tell me what you feel.

Is the light that covers you so warm and surreal?

Look homeward, angel, tell me what you hear.

Is the song that you're singing telling me you're near?

Story: All the Tulips in Holland

I recently visited a hospice client of mine with an interesting story. The client, who I'll call Bee, has dementia, although she is still able to interact with others. She used to own a flower shop and is very proud to tell people how much money she made with the flower shop, although the dollar amount she made seems to increase with each telling of the story. Bee will always show is done with the session by saying, "Listen here. I tell it to you straight. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go home and bring your wife some flowers because that will make her feel really good."

In our last session, Bee told this story (paraphrased): Last week I went to Holland. I really liked it there. The people were real nice because I brought them tulip bulbs from my shop and planted them all over the place. People really thought they were beautiful, so they started growing them themselves. That's where all the tulips in Holland came from.

I hope this story brightens your day a little bit, just like the tulips brightened Holland. :)

Sincerely,
Bryan Odeen, MT-BC