Songs of Comfort at The End of Life

Life is like a song. It has crescendos and rhythm and a defined beginning, middle and end. The Threshold Choir takes this song metaphor literally and uses it to comfort terminally ill individuals with music and harmony. While singing at bedsides, people have told the singers they feel less pain, anxiety and loneliness. Today, the group has expanded from its origin in San Francisco to 150 choirs around the world. SUBSCRIBE: ****** Follow us behind the scenes on Instagram: ****** Make our acquaintance on Facebook: ****** Give us a shout on Twitter: ****** Come hang with us on Vimeo: ****** Visit our world directly: ****** Great Big Story is a video network dedicated to the untold, overlooked & flat-out amazing. Humans are capable of incredible things & we're here to tell their stories. When a rocket lands in your backyard, you get in.

♫ Singing this song blesses me. ♫ - [Voiceover] Death being like a song, takes place over time. There's a beginning to it, there's a culmination, and then there's an ending. I think it has the possibility of enhancing our lives rather than taking something away from them. My name is Kate Munger, I'm the founder of The Threshold Choir. We sing at the bedsides of people who are dying. (singing in harmony) I started the first choir in March of 2000. Six months later, two more choirs, and today there are 150 choirs around the world. ♫ May you be at peace. ♫ In 1990, I spent an afternoon taking care of a friend of mine who was dying of ***/AIDS. He was comatose and agitated, and I didn't know what to do. So I started instinctively singing to him. He started to calm and I started to calm. I knew I'd discovered something ancient, and that I wanted to bring back. The songs that we bring to bedsides are mostly songs that we've written. They're short, they're sung very, very softly, and the lyrics offer comfort, they offer serenity, they offer simplicity and ease. We will knock on the door and try to slip into the room where the person is dying, as gently as a butterfly. We've come to sing for you. ♫ May you be free from suffering. ♫ We often see a calming of the breath, sometimes we'll see a toe tapping or a finger moving, a smile, and then when we're done, slip out just as quietly. Often we'll leave singing. ♫ You are not alone, I am here now. ♫ Many of the people we've sung for say that their pain is gone, their pain is lessened, that is a miracle to me. (gentle piano music)