We Are Second Responders

Thoughts on alleviating suffering through song

Hello, Friends. I wasn’t sure if I was going to send out a newsletter this week or not, as the last several days have been tough ones for me. My dad is currently in what is likely to be the last few days of his life, and I am so grateful to have been able to fly to Upstate New York earlier this week to spend some time with him in the hospital, shortly before he was moved to a hospice facility.

There are many personal details I wish to process privately, but because writing is so healing for me, I feel gratitude and relief in this moment to have found some small sense of groundedness by expressing my emotional experience through private journaling and poetry the last three weeks, and by sharing this short reflection with all of you today.

Many years ago, I stumbled upon a video of singer Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine visiting a young teenage woman, Karinya Chen, who was, at the time, in hospice due to a very rare and fatal form of cancer. Karinya was a huge fan of Florence, and was supposed to go to the Florence + the Machine’s concert in Austin, Texas, but the progression of the cancer prevented her from being able to attend. She was, of course, devastated.

Instead, Florence Welch and her guitarist Rob Ackroyd brought a private concert to Karinya in her hospice room. You can watch this incredibly moving video for yourself, below, and read more about Karinya’s story here.

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Here is the post I made on Facebook back on March 18th, 2018, when I shared this video with my digital community on that platform:

"Reposting this from last year, because this gorgeous video of Florence singing to a young fan with cancer shows the power of music, love, and comfort in moments of heartbreak. I hope I can give someone a gift like this someday.

The moment where Florence sits on this young cancer patient's bed and holds her hand as she sings right to her perfectly captures the indescribable power of one human being to connect with another human being, and from within the trenches of illness, to spark joy from something as simple and endlessly complex as a song. I adore when they start to sing together.

What greater gift can an artist (and human) give? Lull us gently away from our earthbound pain with sweet songs, be unafraid to step into the middle of the mess and take our hand in theirs, and even just for a few minutes, allow us to be free of our bodies and our selves.

For those who deny the power of art, especially artists themselves--we spend so much time doubting the magic of what we make-- please realize that making art is not about being famous or wealthy or even known. It is about connecting to another human being and gifting them with something so immaterial but so desperately vital, something that outweighs anything that we have the ability to measure.”

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This week, five years after sharing that post, sitting amongst a carousel of nurses coming in and out of the hospital room, I felt incapable of supporting my dad in any kind of a clinical sense. I felt helpless. Even if I was a nurse or a doctor, my dad will not recover from this latest stumbling block in a series of health challenges that span the last 25 years.

Yet, sitting there next to my dad, who was a musician himself who wrote songs back in the heyday of his band, I was reminded of the power of sound, of song. I am not a songwriter, but I am a poet, and I’ve no doubt this romantic spirit is a priceless gift from my dad to me.

I had brought my laptop to the hospital, and with that sense of helplessness present, I began playing his favorite Beatles songs for him, one after another. I played my favorite Beatles songs for him.

I sang “Let It Be” and let my voice be shaky and strong:

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shinin' until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

My dad didn’t open his eyes very much, but he did move around a bit, appearing to try to get closer to the speakers. He looked calmer than he had a few minutes before. At one point, I’m pretty sure he smiled.

It wasn’t enough to make me feel like I brought him any kind of tangible relief. And, it was enough, both at the same time.

In 2020, during the early part of the pandemic, I was teaching virtual courses for Theatre Education graduate students at Emerson College, while at the same time working on earning my MFA from the school. I was student and teacher. I desperately missed gathering together with my students and colleagues and mentors at the College in person.

During the virtual commencement ceremony that spring, my mentor and then head of the Performing Arts Department Dr. Bob Colby, shared a sentiment with the students and faculty that is burned into my heart always. Bob told us that theatre artists (all creative souls, really) aren’t first responders, and in the midst of a pandemic, we were likely feeling helpless in the midst of so much suffering. After all, we were studying the art of theatre, not training to be Emergency Medical Technicians or surgeons.

“We are not first responders,” he admitted. “But we, as artists, are second responders.”

Bob explained that as a first responder, a doctor saves lives. We need these people, absolutely. And we, artists, as second responders, swoop in and make sure that the lives that have been saved from death are now worth living. That they are filled with beauty and zest and the very specific kind of ecstasy that arises when we hear our favorite song, the words of Shakespeare, or feast our eyes on a stunning painting.

The truth in Bob’s words has changed the way I think about the power of creativity and human connection in inconceivably difficult times.

I am not a miracle worker, whatever that means. Neither are you.

I am a second responder. If you are reading this, I have a feeling you are, too.

Our hearts may keep beating on their own, no symphony required.

And.

Art and beauty offer infinite opportunities for our hearts to beat in time with something much more expansive than our physical selves. Anything - from poetry to pie - that is made and shared with love can act as a mirror, that when held to the sun at just the right angle, might reflect the bits of beauty and goodness that still remain in the midst of the raging storm.

As I sang to my dad, courtesy of The Beatles song, The End:

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make

How can we make as much love as we can for ourselves, and in turn, for others?

I won’t sign off wishing you a weekend full of peace or relief or painlessness. I also won’t attempt to stick a perfect digital landing here and offer a pithy quote promising that our hearts won’t break, in a million ways. That would be false advertising. Hopes can’t be that high for a Substack newsletter.

I will close, however, by encouraging you to seek out something small this weekend - a song, a poem, a film, a pan of brownies made with love - that just might act as a tiny balm on the wounds of your heart or the heart of someone you love.

We are second responders. What light might we shine to make the moments we do have just a bit easier to bear?