“I don’t have much of a singing voice anymore,” is something I often heard when I first started inviting people to hymn sings. No wonder. In their 90s, without many people to talk to, let alone sing with, over the past few years of masking, our voices have deteriorated. And mine wasn’t great to start with. (My failed audition for the Grebel Chapel Choir 30-some years ago is evidence of this).
Regardless, I sing, in public, more than I would ever have imagined, and encourage others to do the same. “That’s why we put all our voices together, and then it sounds good!” I respond. And they come, and we sing.
Thursday mornings are energizing—I travel the length of the ‘supportive care’ hallway:
“Will you come sing with us?
Peter—we need your voice!
John—can I borrow your extra chair for our hymn sing?
Frieda—we’re singing this morning, remember your glasses!”
And they come. Those who don’t have the physical stamina to join the circle that day often request that I leave the door open to include them.
We use the classic Sing Your Way Home songbook, but many of this generation know most hymns by heart—a wonderful gift, especially when dementia is relentlessly erasing newer memories. We sing and chat, music familiar from childhood evoking memories and emotion.
“That one (In the Garden) brings a tear to my eye—I can see my mother singing in the kitchen back in Arkansas when I was a boy.”
From a man who had a career in ministry and is now deep in dementia, “I know all these songs. I am a chaplain, and I know these songs—in Dutch too!” and he goes on to sing, harmonize, and live into his identity.
A woman, living with aphasia, no longer speaks but nods along to the music, with a smile and bright eyes. She knows, and belongs in this shared experience of worship and community.
We’ve been singing for months now. Voices are noticeably stronger from this weekly opportunity to use them. And we have such fun! “I haven’t felt this happy since I was 12,” one man quipped after singing There’s a Church in the Valley by the Wildwood. And we actually DO sound good, together!
