Singers provide comfort for dying

Posted 2/1/22

When a call is received that someone is needing comfort in their final days or struggling with declining health, the Hawkeye Threshold Singers (HTS) arrange to go sing songs of comfort and peace. …

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Singers provide comfort for dying

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When a call is received that someone is needing comfort in their final days or struggling with declining health, the Hawkeye Threshold Singers (HTS) arrange to go sing songs of comfort and peace. They take only their stools and voices and travel as a small team of three.

The Hawkeye Threshold Singers are part of a nationwide network of singers, known as Threshold Choir (TC), who offer songs of comfort for people who are dying. Threshold Choir singers have sung to the terminally ill and the infirm for more than 20 years. TC is a movement founded in 1999 in California by Kate Munger. It grew out of her own experience of sitting with a friend who was dying. TC is now made up of more than 200 chapters in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. The Hawkeye Threshold Singers is the first and, currently, the only Threshold chapter in Iowa.

A small team of women, all volunteers, who use only their blended voices to provide a calm and sacred space singing for persons on the threshold of death. “We sing to offer comfort in a private, intimate moment,” leader Susan Gingerich says. “We are not an entertainment choir; we are focused on helping people find peace and comfort while on their final life’s journey.” The Hawkeye Threshold Singers normally sing in groups of three to those in hospitals, care centers or private homes at the invitation of family, friends, or care providers. Sitting bedside or near an individual, choir members perform a cappella, soothing, non-denominational songs, each typically less than two minutes long, singing about 20 to 30 minutes.

The group began singing together two months prior to the pandemic outbreak and quickly moved to Zoom rehearsals. The ensemble currently has 12 committed women but welcomes more singers. They follow CDC and TC guidelines singing with masks and being vaccinated. The Hawkeye Threshold Singers became an official chapter of the nonprofit international Threshold Choir in March 2021.

Simplicity and gentleness are the singers’ watchwords, not only for their custom-written repertoire but for the singers themselves. To a listener in the throes of illness or death, the gentleness of song may be one of the only or last ways to reach the mind and heart. The Threshold Choir vision is that all those at life’s threshold may be honored with compassion and respect through song. HTS find that their music and singing brings calm and healing to an experience that can often be accompanied by fear. Singing provides an environment of comfort and caring—not only for the patients, but for the singers as well.

Persons interested in joining the Hawkeye Threshold Singers or inviting them to sing for someone on the threshold can contact hawkeye@thresholdchoir.org or 319-855-8382.