When I was a grad student in New York, I was interning at Sloan Kettering, a cancer hospital. The nurses referred to me 'a difficult patient', a 'grumpy old man' who was refusing medication and refusing to speak to staff. Integrative medicine interns, especially in music therapy, were often given these referrals.
After a few days of offering music and him grumbling 'no' at the door, he finally said he'd listen to one song. Based on his age and his pride in being a true New Yorker, I chose a Broadway standard - and it opened the door to communication. Suddenly he was making me mix CDs from his hospital bed of hundreds of favorite showtunes, including one that struck me as especially meaningful- "The Impossible Dream," by Man of La Mancha. I went home and learned it on guitar, and later that week he was inviting nurses in so that he could sing to them, arms outstretched, from his bed.
This patient truly was striving 'with his last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable star' — we were all so grateful that music allowed him to find joy in his last few weeks of life, even from a small room on the eleventh floor of Sloan Kettering. The day he passed away, his family invited me in to his almost-silent room to sing one final song — I chose the one he had highlighted on his mix CD as his wedding song, "Evergreen" by the great Barbra Streisand. Nine of his family members surrounded his bedside and sang along, and then finally let out their tears and laughter and shared stories of this brave man.
Music lives on- glorious, pure, storied music- even when our hearts are laid to rest.