Dear Daughters,

When I was 12 years old, my family went Christmas caroling at a local nursing home in Northern Virginia with a dozen or so other people from our church. Even as a pre-teen boy, I wasn’t scared to sing carols. I’ve always loved singing, especially in a group, and I can mostly carry a tune.

What scared me were the people inside the nursing home. People who were frail and feeble. People whose memories were failing. It’s shameful to say, but it’s the truth. I was 12 years old, hale and hearty. I wasn’t afraid of ghosts or monsters or imaginary demons. I was afraid of people who were living close to death.

My mother had no such silly fears. In addition to being our church’s pianist, she was also a public health nurse. She sang much better than I did. She also knew a lot more about sick people and old people. Compassion, too, it turned out.

As we walked down the sparsely decked halls, Mom stepped forward to lead the singing. When others (not just me!) struggled to find their voices and enthusiasm, she sang louder and smiled brighter. Subtly but insistently, she stirred the spirits within us and amplified the chorus moving through us. And the people responded. Both those of us who had come to sing and those we serenaded.

We were no Mormon Tabernacle Choir, mind you. Just a small group of local Baptists conveying what good cheer we could on a winter’s night. But the nursing home’s residents smiled and clapped. Some even sang along. One grabbed her walker and joined our procession.

The energy and good cheer swelled until we reached a room whose residents were almost entirely nonresponsive. Here, three men lay flat on their backs in hospital gowns and rolling beds. The room smelled like chemical disinfectant. 

Here, I felt my secret fear goosepimple the skin beneath my sweatshirt. We had paraded our way into a place where music was no match for the growing darkness.

When we reached the end of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” the group fell silent. There was no place to go next. Nothing to say here, really.

Then Mom walked into the room, sat down beside one of the men, and took his hand in hers. She didn’t sing. That would have been too much, I think. She just held his hand and sat, keeping him company for a moment.

It was someone else who restarted the singing. One of the men from our church choir, standing just a few feet behind me.

“God rest ye, merry gentlemen,” he began, “let nothing you dismay.”

“Remember Christ, our savior, was born on Christmas Day.”

A few other voices joined in: “To save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.”

I looked at my mother, holding the hand of a stranger near death, and I opened my mouth and sang: “Oh, tidings of comfort and joy—comfort and joy. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.”

I sang as clearly and as joyfully as I could, in my imperfect 12-year-old voice, standing among that small band of Baptists. Because it was suddenly starkly apparent to me that this is what you do—at least until you are brave enough and kind enough to be the one who holds the hand of the dying man yourself.

Until then, you stand and you sing. Shoulder to shoulder with the humble human chorus around you.

There’s nothing more to tell you about that night. We didn’t change the world or even give much cheer to those men. We sang. We shared happiness and warmth on a cold night as best we could with a group of people who needed it.

That’s all.

And that’s enough. That’s much of what it means to be a good human: To stand together and sing despite the cold, the dark, and the fear. To carol like your grandmother, Carol.

Love, 

Dad