More on Mom

This is the obituary announcement we put in the local papers:

Elizabeth Van Tine O’Brien
January 19, 1911- May 23, 2008

Second of five children of John Raub Van Tine and Elizabeth Hardy Kynett, born in Lansdowne, PA (Philadelphia), Elizabeth, also called Betty, came to Lodi, CA from New Jersey with her husband, James T. O’Brien and children in 1959.

A strong advocate for women’s rights, in 1958 Betty was the first woman elected to school board of Evesham Township, NJ, on a write-in vote. She and Jim traveled widely in connection with his work with Lions Club Int’l. An accomplished seamstress and knitter, she worked at The Fabric Store in Lodi for years. Longtime member of Lodi’s First United Methodist Church, Daughters of the American Revolution, Pi Beta Phi, Daughters of Founders and Patriots, and Dickinson College Alumni.

Predeceased by siblings Karldon K. Van Tine; John Raub Van Tine, Jr.; and Catherine B. Styles; husband Jim O’Brien and stepson James T. O’Brien, Jr. Survived by sister Eleanor V. Slim, Doylestown, PA; daughter Aline O’Brien and Corby Lawton, San Rafael; daughter Catherine O’Brien and Anthony Montanino, Palo Alto; grandchildren James T. O’Brien, III, Idaho; Rainbow Aline and Vincent Porthé, Chicago; Deirdre Blessing Wolfer, San Rafael; and Alexandra Amelia Foster, San Diego; great-grandchild Brandon O’Brien; and many other friends and relations.

Friends are invited to a memorial at 2:00 pm on Saturday, May 31, 2008, at First United Methodist Church, 200 W. Oak St., Lodi. Donations in her memory may be made to Hospice of San Joaquin County.

My, how the Internet has changed the ways we deal with someone's passing -- or any other life transition, for that matter. This is our mother's online guest book.

I encourage everyone to check out her or his local hospice group, and to support it. The people who do hospice work are saints, as far as I'm concerned. We were so reassured about how an what our mother and we were experiencing by Mother's nurse, Edee Singer, aide Kim Martinsdiaz, and social worker Diane Medina.

Our local hospice, formerly Marin Hospice, and now combined with San Francisco and Sonoma Counties, is now called Hospice by the Bay. Not only do hospice workers help with dying, but they also offer ongoing grief counseling (including some for children and teens) as well as maintaining a comprehensive library of death and dying resources. I might add that many include The Pagan Book of Living and Dying among these resources.

Music & Healing & Dying

Last week I attended a workshop given by Hospice of Marin for "Marin clergy and spiritual leaders," meaning I got the invitation by way of the Marin Interfaith Council. Hospice of Marin is the oldest hospice on the West Coast and second oldest in the country, to Connecticut. They must have a good source of funding because they recently moved into some mighty fancy digs. They outgrew their former building.

What a caring, dedicated group they are! I've met some of the hospice workers at MIC events. I've always considered people who do that work to be saints, or at least 'saintly,' even though we Pagans don't exactly have such a category of mortals. In any case, besides hospice care, MIC provides grief counseling and offers educational programs, like the one I'm writing about, to the communities they serve. They've expanded to serve Sonoma County, San Francisco County and part of San Mateo County.

The workshop included a presentation by Kathy Speas, a member of the Threshold Choir, a group of women who sing at the bedsides of dying people. (For some reason their website is down; I provide this link in case it's fixed by the time you read this. If it's not, you can read more here.) The Threshold Choir itself is about 15 women, but only two or three go to individuals; more could create too much commotion in a place where a peaceful atmosphere is best. They have some CDs available for purchase.

Another group that ministers to the dying through music is the Chalice of Repose: The Voice of Music-Thanatology.* Based in Missoula, Montana, but having centers in various cities around the world, Chalice of Repose offers harp music for the dying.

My friend Evergreen Erb, a Reclaiming Witch in Vermont, also does harp therapy to aid healing and to ease dying. She's a member of the International Harp Therapy Program; her magical harp can also be heard on some Reclaiming CDs.

The other speaker at the workshop was Maryliz Smith. (Her website does not appear to be working either.) Maryliz commutes from Marin County to Vancouver to work with cancer patients at the Callanish Healing Retreats Society; her bio is here. She played for us a triple ocarina. Ocarinas have been around for 12,000 years nearly everywhere humans have lived, but this was the first triple one I'd seen. One chamber plays a drone while the other two can be played by opening and closing the finger holes. At first I thought the sound was celestial, but as I listened I realized that it had the sound of wind in caves. I pictured Hekate leading Odysseus down into Hades, hearing the songs of shades in the darkness. The sound is engendered by the element Air resonating inside the clay of Earth. I want one! So far, the least expensive one I've found is $350, so if one comes into my possession, it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

During the socializing at lunch, several of the people (one man, maybe eight or nine women) expressed frustration with their choir directors, pastors and rabbis because they'd found them to be inflexible about what music was appropriate to play for funerals and memorials. These women felt that using music that was meaningful to the deceased and her or his loved ones was important, even if traditional liturgical music were part of the ritual. Too frequently they'd met with opposition to this from those they'd most expected to want to care and help.

I could only nod my head, thinking of how creative we Pagans are when it comes to any kind of rite of passage. We are free to use what works best for us, regardless of whether it's considered secular or sacred. In my opinion, using secular music in a sacred manner sanctifies it. Nearly every day I'm reminded how great it is to be Pagan.

* Thanatology is "the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families."