Yeah, it's kinda weird. After several strokes had rendered my Dad mute and mostly incapable of caring for himself, he was able to struggle to his feet in church and sing, from memory, most of what was sung. We weren't sure if he could read anymore, though he'd sit for hours at least leafing through books and magazines, but song would open his mouth when nothing else could. He spent his last couple of years that way. Maybe one or two spoken words per day or week, but congregational singing gave him voice. An ironic end for a humble clergyman.

After a stroke and a blood clot, my Mom has become a strange combination of child and raging granny, simultaneously silly, playful, and insightfully outspoken. She wobbles over to her piano and plays a bit still, though her hands aren't capable of much anymore, and she'll openly sing, in a kind of croak, her favourite songs. While she spent months recuperating in hospitals and nursing homes after her stroke, she listened to CBC radio day and night...I believe it saved her life.

If my brain ever refuses music I hope I'm either dead or too adled to know what I've lost.

Peace, Mooh.