Saved by a Song by Mary Gauthier

Author:Mary Gauthier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

I was signing autographs after a show at the Edmonton Folk Festival in Alberta, when I saw a woman with a black lab service dog on a short leash standing in the back, waiting for the line to wind down. She approached the table when I was done and introduced herself. “Hi! My name is Carla!”

She paused, offered me a huge smile, glanced down at the lab. “And this is Lando.” She spoke full mouthed, a little loud. Theater major, I thought.

She said, “I’m here to put in a request!”

Oh Lord, I thought. A request?

“I’m a music therapist at a hospice. I have a client who owned a record store downtown for years. He’s a huge music fan, and a big fan of yours. He does not have long to live. It would mean a lot if you’d come sing for him before you leave.”

She paused.

“I could come get you at your hotel tomorrow morning, bring you back. The whole thing would probably take about an hour.”

Oh boy. What to say?

I’d not been inside a hospice since AIDS had taken the lives of so many of my close friends twenty years prior. Returning to hospice was scary. It could conjure ghosts.

I needed a minute. I looked down. Tried to think.

The process of dying is an intimate, intensely personal unfolding. In addition to worrying about stirring up grief from my past, I was afraid of invading a private moment, maybe even adding to a family’s distress. How could I go into a hospice room with a frightened family I’d never met, open up my guitar case, pull out my guitar, and start singing?

“Carla, this scares me.”

She smiled, grabbed my arm, lowered her voice. “Mary, I’ll walk you through it. Lando and I do this every day. Just follow our lead.”

I hesitated. I really didn’t want to do it.

“It would mean a lot to Robert,” she said.

I’d met men like Robert over the years, music lovers and true friends to singer-songwriters like me. Robert probably sold my records one at a time, suggesting each person give my music a listen. I felt indebted, torn.

I looked at Lando, his shiny black coat, sweet face, beautiful eyes.

I caved.

“Ok. All right.”

The next morning I stood nervously sipping hot coffee by the valet station at 9:45 a.m., wishing I’d said no. I was not looking forward to going to a hospice to sing for a dying man.

Carla pulled up in a van, head bobbing, singing along with the radio. She waved, smiled, hit a button, the side door of the van slid open, and the music got louder. I tossed in my guitar.

Lando surrendered the passenger seat to me, hopped in the back, and poked his face through the space between the two front seats. I petted his head and tried not to think about where we were going. We drove through downtown Edmonton, making small talk, until we arrived at the hospice. As we headed in Lando stayed by Carla’s side, no leash.

At the nurses’ station, the nurses smiled, petted Lando.

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