Lighting the Way with Hallowell

Last month, we gathered on Brattleboro Common for our third annual Lantern Walk to remember loved ones; this year we got to carry the lanterns made at Robin Davis's workshops. They were incredible!

As always, we were joined by the Hallowell Singers. It has been a year of loss for Hallowell, with the deaths of three stalwart members: Tom Goldschmid, Larry Crockett, and Peter Amidon. As we walked downtown, I thought of the bedside vigils they had sung at, a balm for those actively dying; the living rooms and nursing home corridors they had stood in, holding others' grief, then quietly leaving; the Memorial Garden services they enlivened with "I'll Fly Away." I marveled at how much comfort and joy they each brought to this community.

I was stumped at how to do justice to Peter's importance to Hallowell, especially, then realized I didn't have to: In July 2024, Peter sat down with Kathy Leo (Hallowell cofounder and Tom's partner) to record an interview for StoryCorps. I listened to it again this week. Hearing their conversation, which includes Peter's and Tom's illnesses and the recognition that their own ends were approaching, is profoundly moving. A link to the interview is below - it's worth a listen.

To paraphrase a Hallowell staple, the lives Peter and Larry and Tom led – ones filled with kindness and curiosity and a sense of purpose  – speak for them. They shared a basic human decency and gentleness of spirit that lit their way through the world. They are truly missed.

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By the time we finished the Lantern Walk, it was pouring, so we sang one last song in the gazebo and headed off to our cars, a little soggy and no doubt sad, but a little lighter in spirit. ~ Hilary Farquhar