When I checked Twitter this morning, I saw a tweet about music and its “profound power, particularly when it comes to memory.” This observation is now commonplace among those who write about dementia and those who live with it. Kate and I have always been drawn to music. Our first date was to a performance of Handel’s Messiah. We have attended many musical events over our marriage. Regular visitors to this blog know that we have binged on music since her diagnosis. I don’t believe, however, that I have ever mentioned two early experiences that Kate and I had that illustrate the impact that music can have on people whose brains have been damaged through stroke and/or dementia.
The first occurred with Kate’s father in the Fall 1989. After experiencing a stroke on Veterans Day, he didn’t speak. Knowing that the stroke had damaged his brain, we wondered what he was able to process. Did he recognize us? Did he understand what we were saying? How was he feeling?
On a Sunday morning not too long after his stroke, we were visiting him along with Kate’s mother who turned on the television to the Sunday morning service at the family’s home church where her father grew up. Not long into the service, a longtime friend and member of the choir sang a solo. We looked over at her father and tears were running down his cheeks. I still choke up when I recount this story. It was a sign to us that although his brain had been damaged, he could still connect with us in some way.
The second story involved Kate’s mother. She, too, had experienced a stroke that affected her speech but not to the same extent. She didn’t speak much and that diminished over time. She hadn’t been able to attend church for at least a year or more. On one of our last visits with her in Fort Worth, Kate asked her mother’s pastor if he could come to the house to serve home communion for her mother.
He came out that Sunday afternoon. We sat around a table on the back porch where he conducted the service. At the end, he said, “The Bible says, ‘And then they sang a hymn.’” Then he led us in “Amazing Grace.” As we sang, we noticed her mother singing as though she did it every day. When we finished, she spoke right up and said, “I think we need something to break the solemnity of this occasion.” She burst into a children’s song. I think it was “This Little Light of Mine.” It was an emotional experience for all of us. Music spoke to her and through her to us. That was the last time I heard her speak or sing so well.
