The Feeling in the Room

There are moments that fold time.

Last week I was in correspondence with Vivian — one of the four founding musicians who will record with Acoustic Healing this May at New Dawn Studios in Monterey. Vivian is a retired oncology nurse with over 40 years of clinical experience. She is also a Certified Clinical Musician (CCM) since 2014, having devoted herself to the healing practice of harp after a career spent at the bedsides of the seriously ill.

We were simply working out the logistics of our recording session. And then, from Hawaii — Hawaiian birdsong and warm ocean breezes in the background — she sent a note that I wasn't prepared for.

She had played harp for Becca.

Becca — my daughter-in-law, whose passing inspired everything that became Acoustic Healing — had been her patient. Vivian remembered her from the clinic. She remembered playing for her when she was hospitalized. And she remembered what happened in that room:

"I don't remember what I played. I just remember the feeling in the room — and it was profound. My heart tears up to this day."

She told me Becca, like so many she has played for, fell asleep.

And of my son Nick — Becca's husband, who was by her side — Vivian wrote:

"He was the wonderful angel husband to Becca. It was the definition of Love watching his caring to Becca."

I have played at bedsides myself. I know what it means when a patient's breath slows, their shoulders ease, and they drift. It isn't passive. It is a gift — one that passes between musician and patient without a single word.

Vivian has given that gift for over a decade. Hundreds of times. In rooms like the one she shared with Becca.

Her note closed with something I will carry into every note I play this May:

"I feel honored to be part of your journey, my friend. No words really can describe my emotions even to this day. It hits deep in my core."

I sat with those words for a long time.

This is the foundation Acoustic Healing is built on — not a business strategy, not a content plan, but moments exactly like this one. A nurse who became a musician. A room that held something profound. A daughter-in-law who found peace in music. A son whose love for his wife left an impression that a healer still carries more than a decade later. And a recording session this May that is, in ways I am still processing, a continuation of something that began long before I ever had a name for it.

Thank you, Vivian. For that room. For this journey. For Hawaii. 💜

💜 David E Villareal, RPh, CCM

🎸 www.acoustichealing.music

🌐 www.thetherapeuticguitarist.com

💼 www.linkedin.com/in/david-villareal-rph-ccm-35963819

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