But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul…
“Meltdowns”
I remember the first time I saw my Dad have a “meltdown.” In June of 2009, he and my Mom drove to visit my wife and me in Ohio. During the middle of the night he got up to use the bathroom and when he tried to return to bed he started to mumble. I was in the other room and heard him and knew something was wrong. I got up and found him frozen in the doorway. He was singing a little jingle to try to get his legs to move. I helped him back into bed. As I sat on the edge of the bed, little did I know what journey lay ahead of us.
My Dad, Clayton Henderson, grew up the oldest of two boys. His father left unannounced when my Dad was 6 and his brother, Clyde, was 4. To help with finances, my Dad and Clyde would take the city bus to New Haven where they sang as professional boy choristers in the Trinity on the Green Choir of Men and Boys. They were paid for their singing talents – my Dad’s first “professional” gig. As a teenager he would play piano in illegal taverns to earn more money for his Mom as well as shape the beginning of what would be his saving grace when it came to his Parkinson’s Disease.
My Dad was a master of the keyboard. He could take ANY song and transpose it on the spot into almost any key you wanted. He was a mix of Oscar Peterson, Glenn Gould, and Andre Previn. For my entire life, he was organist and choirmaster at (mainly) Episcopal churches. He was a gifted improviser on the organ as well – not to mention one of the foremost scholars of American music.
Thankfully, Parkinson’s came late in my Dad’s life. But it came hard and fast. He went through a few doctors at first. Some who even dismissed his symptoms. Eventually, he found Dr. Katie Kompoliti at Rush University Movement Disorder Clinic. “Dr. K” as she affectionately was called was a vital guide through his labyrinth and truly a godsend to not only my Dad but to our family. Almost every one of us accompanied him to one of his appointments in Chicago – a 2-hour drive in good traffic. “Expect the unexpected” was a constant mantra from Dr. Kompoliti. During an appointment in early 2010, he was having a “meltdown.” He could not speak his symptoms to Dr. Kompoliti, but he could sing them. So, he created a tune that would allow him to communicate for that appointment.
Music
Music was everywhere, every day of his life. My Mom was an opera singer and all five of us children studied and/or played music. He kept his distance when we practiced so not to influence us one way or another. He was kind of our bandleader.
Recently I came across a file on his laptop that listed Sousa marches in 5/8, 6/8 time that he would start humming to help him unfreeze. During episodes of dyskinesia he would start conducting. At first very large swoops with his arms (like an animated orchestra conductor) until he could control his movements and conduct as if he were leading a fully professional choir through one of Bach’s Motets (that needed very little direction).
Even during nights when he struggled to sleep, he’d challenge his mental acuity by pairing the Hymn from the Episcopal Hymnal [1] with the time on the alarm clock. 3:46am – Fairest Lord Jesus; 2:36am – Once in Royal David’s City.
In the years since he was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he discovered a variety of ways in which music has helped him temporarily hold back some of the more debilitating aspects of the disease.
WATCH VIDEO
At the piano, with camera rolling, what unfolds is the result of his ongoing experiments with his uncooperative body: to meet it halfway, to try to read its signals and not fight increasing lack of control, to figure out how to “dance” with it.
Relief
As I film him, his slurred speech, crumpled gait, and claws relax. Fingers find keys and unfurl, edging out some semblance of a scale. Then another octave, surer and clearer, up and down, until both hands coordinate across the keyboard: paralleled, nearly precise. And then his hands break forth into multi-tiered songs. Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. Legrand’s How do you keep the music playing? Without sheet music.
When he finishes, he holds up his untrembling arms, and says, “Look, I can have up to ten minutes of relief.” [2]
Neurologist Oliver Sacks said, “I think of music as a prosthesis for the injured part of the brain.” [3] Nothing could be truer for my Dad. While he lay on the hospital bed unable to talk and under heavy sedation from morphine, I used my phone to play some hymns from King’s College Choir. During the hymn Abide with Me I saw his fingers gently playing the organ part on his chest and then in the last stanza he mouthed the closing words “in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.” For his funeral, he asked that my brother sing and I accompany him on the piano: Samuel Barber’s Sure on this Shining Night and Aaron Copland’s arrangement of the hymn tune At the River. Music – in life and in death.
There have been numerous studies on the effects of music for People with Parkinson’s. Most people listen to music to create a desired mood while others perform music to be part of a community. My Dad used his life-long passion, music, and somehow that act of physically making music communicated with his brain and allowed unexpected results for many months if not a few more years than expected.
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1. The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1940. New York: Church Pension Fund.
2. From an unpublished manuscript by Gretchen Henderson.
3. Brain & Life. Baltimore, MD: Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Jan/Feb 2018.
Video by Ethan Henderson
Photo by Martin Ernster