Healing Harmonies for East End Hospice Patients

Originally posted by 27East

For the past five years, the East End Threshold Singers of Westhampton Beach have sung therapeutic melodies and harmonies to hospice patients on the East End, particularly at the East End Hospice (EEH) Kanas Center for Hospice Care and at the Westhampton Care Center.

Every Thursday, the choir washes peace and tranquility over the state-of-the-art Kanas facility by singing simple, nonsecular lullabies, chants, and hymns in the common areas and at the bedsides of patients there. The services palpably promote the well-being and dignity of hospice patients, they claim.

East End Hospice, located on Quiogue, is the region’s only independent nonprofit hospice provider, according to its online overview. The center delivers comprehensive, life-affirming, and individualized palliative care to terminally ill patients, focusing on pain and symptom management, emotional and spiritual support, caregiver bereavement counseling, and more. It also offers in-home hospice services when possible.

President and CEO of East End Hospice, Mary Crosby, shared that the Kanas Center is a “sacred space” for patients and their families seeking comfort away from a hospital setting. At the Kanas Center, “we’ve created an environment that is not at all like a hospital,” she said.

“There is an incredible amount of natural light that comes in,” she noted. “Patients can go outside onto a private deck or move their bed outside. It’s a place where you don’t hear alarms, monitors, and beeping, whereas hospitals can be incredibly overstimulating.”

Crosby said that East End Hospice focuses on symptom relief and improving the quality of life during one’s final days. While it certainly can be very sad to see families lose their loved ones, “it is truly rewarding in a deeper way.” Hospice patients are in good hands with medical professionals, and families are given a safe space to grieve and find community.

The East End Threshold Singers services perfectly tie into the serene environment East End Hospice strives to create.

“Their music is incredibly spiritual and beautiful. It’s a raw kind of beauty because it’s a cappella,” Crosby said. “Overall, the acoustics bring a sense of peace to the facility. Many of our patients are unresponsive or minimally responsive, but you can see their whole body relax as they listen.”

The choir is coordinated by Alice Froehlich, Carol Johns, and Sarah Jaffe Turnbull. Turnbull co-founded the group with Claire Watson in 2017. It is one of 175 chapters of Threshold Choir International, formed 24 years ago to bring peace and comfort through gentle songs to the dying and their loved ones, explained Johns.

The coordinating members have personal connections to the Threshold Choir International mission and understand the healing nature of music for hospice patients. Froehlich shared that her mother received outpatient care from East End Hospice during her final days. Afterward, she sought out volunteer opportunities and met Watson, a Water Mill-based sculptor. She had the idea to start a local chapter.

The East End Threshold Singers consist of about 15 members who alternate singing for the Kanas Center’s patients in groups of four to six. They welcome anyone who loves to sing, can hold a part in harmony, and wants to participate in the special pursuit of bringing physical and emotional relief to hospice patients.

Once a week, just after noon, the choir meets at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Westhampton Beach to practice before traveling to the Kanas Center at 2 p.m. The volunteers sing in the common areas and bedside for about an hour, drawing from a collection of short tunes predominantly written by Threshold members.

The choir’s touching encounters with hospice patients are manifold. Although the choir’s purpose is to sing to patients, Froehlich shared a favorite story of when the dynamic was reversed. This year, a woman requested a bedside performance, and when they entered, she was singing a beautiful Hebrew chant in bed.

“Her husband and son shared that she loved to sing,” Froehlich said. “She wrote her own songs and performed her whole life. And that day, she used all her strength to belt out a gorgeous, upbeat song she had sung to her son when he was little.

“We were overwhelmed. No one’s ever sang to us,” added Froehlich, grateful for the moving experience.

Froehlich said that the choir is always trying to broaden its repertoire and incorporate songs in other languages, with the intention of resonating with individuals and their unique identities.

There is much synergy between the East End Threshold Singers and East End Hospice’s missions, which extend beyond a patient’s life.

“When we do our Memorial Rock Garden Dedication Services, which is for the patients who have passed away at Kanas, their families can purchase an engraved stone,” Crosby explained. The stone is then placed in the facility’s Memorial Rock Garden to symbolize the person’s permanent legacy. When the Threshold Singers participate in the ceremony, it evokes families’ final memories together with their loved ones.

The choir also participates in the organization’s annual Tree of Lights Memorial Service every December, during which ornaments are hung on trees in Westhampton Beach, East Hampton, Cutchogue, and Southampton Village to honor the deceased.

At the ceremonies, “you see all the families, children, and seniors, and everyone gathers, feeling the same thing. That’s very consoling for someone in pain from the loss of a loved one, to know they’re not alone,” Froehlich said.

She continued to describe how these ongoing ceremonies and programs make East End Hospice invaluable to the grieving. Froehlich volunteers with the center to make check-in calls to the bereaved every few months. “You say, ‘Hey, How are you doing? Are you okay? Do you need to talk to someone?’ And these people are so grateful that someone cares.”

To learn more about joining the East End Threshold Choir, email EastEndThresholdSingers@thresholdchoir.org. To volunteer with East End Hospice, email volunteers@eeh.org.