Gracefulnotes.weebly.com Website Review

I recently visited a dying man and his devoted wife.  My visit to them was as a hospice music therapist.  I had never met the couple before, but one of the social workers on our hospice team thought that music would be especially helpful to the wife, who had remained at her husband's bedside constantly while he had lived in a nursing home for several years.  She even slept most nights on the recliner in his It was clear to me that her husband was close to the end of his life when I walked in the room, but I could not have prepared myself for what would happen over the next few minutes.  I inquired about her husband's involvement in music over the years; she told me that he played the trumpet and coronet in his younger years with a band.  When I asked about religious music, she said that she liked most hymns, but some she did not like at all.  After receiving this small bit of information, the song Sentimental Journey came to my mind.  I figured that this man, somewhere in his eighties, had probably listened to or even played this song on his As I reached an instrumental break in the song, I noticed the wife sobbing.  Up until this point, she had appeared stoic and strong.  It was clear that she was grieving, but there was a distance in our interactions when I arrived.  Finally, I believe, the music had given her an opportunity to express the grief and large responsibility of several years of caring for her husband.  A friend had stepped into the room while I was singing and she asked the wife, is he getting worse?  The wife replied that she knew he was close to the end. I stopped playing and allowed the wife to express her feelings.  It was in this time that we noticed her husband had stopped breathing so audibly.  She and I went to stand by his side.  He took a few more breaths, and then there was no more.  The hospice nurse carried herself so beautifully and was so present to the husband who had died and to his grieving wife.  She comforted and