Legacy Matters
As four generations of the family say their goodbyes, a woman they have just met sits in a corner, playing her harp. Over the past three years, Jennifer Hollis has been accompanist to hundreds of these intimate gatherings at Lahey Clinic. Hollis, 35, is trained as a music thanatologist and plays her harp and sings to dying patients and their loved ones.
Playing music for the dying is an ancient ritual that Hollis - the only practicing music thanatologist in a Massachusetts hospital, according to Lahey officials - and others are helping to revive. Music thanatologists point to studies suggesting that music can ease pain and breathing difficulties, as well as soothe agitated patients and help them sleep.
As life ebbs, healing music flows.
"Many times families will not expect to have the emotions that they have," said Collins, who encourages patients' relatives to stay in the room when Hollis plays. "They just start to weep. Or people will touch each other. Normally, in the hospital, with the bars up, it's not that easy to make that connection. There's something so healing about it."
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"I do see a lot of suffering," Hollis said. "I see people who have to say goodbye to each other, who are coming to terms with what it means to leave this world, or this life that they've known. But what I also get to see is people being incredibly beautiful and loving and tender with each other, patients saying wonderful things to their families, families saying wonderful things to them. For me, it's a real education in what it means to be human."