Stagg grad’s charity offers songs of comfort for people in hospice

Although she makes her living as a professional singer and songwriter, it’s her charity that Palos Heights native Emily Cavanagh feels most passionate about.

Called A Song for You, the effort began at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to provide personalized original songs and cover songs “to patients and families hit hardest” by COVID-19, primarily those in hospitals and hospices, according to its website, hereisasongforyou.org. Although it started with a single song, it’s grown into a nonprofit organization that has written hundreds of songs for patients in hospice care and first responders.

“I really only wanted to send a couple of songs,” Cavanagh shared. “I just intended to just do this thing that could be a part of that moment in time and didn’t realize there would be such a generous response to it and that there was such a need.”

That need was something she recognized in 2020 when the world began to shut down and people realized the pandemic was going to get much worse before it got better.

“I came home for what I thought would be three weeks, but it was three months,” she said, adding that spending time with her family after living in New York City for 18 years was wonderful but seeing the news each night was devastating.

“Mom and I saw stories of people who were dying and couldn’t hold hands. I think everyone has that moment, but for me that was mine,” Cavanagh said.

“With my skill set as a singer who has a background in service, I realized I could write a song. … It turned into writing and recording a personalized song for patients when their families couldn’t be there. I recorded a low-fi, low-budget recording, very homemade of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand.’”

She and her mom came up with the idea for the charity when she’d been home for several weeks, around the March birthday of her father, Thomas Cavanagh. “We would watch the news constantly,” said her mother, Rosemary Cavanagh. “The stories, we saw them and (Emily) said ‘I have to do something.’ We felt so hopeless. That was how it was launched. Emily thought she could write a song.”

Her mom began filming videos of her daughter singing the songs. “We had nothing but time,” Rosemary said, adding that she wasn’t surprised her daughter started a charitable organization. “She’s been going since she was a kid,” she said, including when at the age of 8 or 9 she played Santa for the neighbors after putting on a “horrible” homemade costume.

“She had empathy for people — how awful it can be or how wonderful it can be,” Rosemary shared. “Emily would bring a little happiness.”

Music has the “ability to transcend a moment,” Emily Cavanagh said. “I’m always blown away — a song can take you back to a place or to a place with hope and optimism. I think that when people couldn’t be in a place with people they loved, they could still feel close. I know as an artist, the venues had gone dark so it was some way that we felt connected as well.”

She said creating the first song brought a “sense of peace. When everything feels like it was crazy, if you can just do one small thing, you can take a breath.”

At first, she and her volunteers created songs for first responders and nurses. “A lot of work in the beginning days was we have a nurse who is in isolation so she needs a song. We had a ton of people who had been working around the clock, so a lot was thank-you songs,” she said.

Many of the stories she recalled are bittersweet. “We wrote one for a woman who was really young who wanted to get married by an oak tree because she wanted to get married to her fiance. … She passed away very shortly after, but she got to dance to the song that we wrote for her,” Emily Cavanagh shared.

“One of the most touching, a 15 year-old reached out to get a song for her dad. They didn’t have a very close relationship but music brought them back together,” she said. “She wanted to convey this message to convey that she’d sing about him.”

The girl was her first co-writer. “It’s the idea of even after you’re gone, I’ll still sing your name. It speaks to keeping people’s legacies alive through a song.”

Emily Cavanagh, who graduated from Stagg High School in 2000, makes a living singing and writing songs, and she plays the guitar and ukulele. She has played professionally for the last 10 years after earning a music degree from Webster University and a master’s degree in social work from New York University.

“I make a living singing,” she said, whether it’s a performance or singing for senior citizens with memory loss for the National Council of Jewish Women or medically fragile children. “Every way I pay my rent is for music, but a lot is at the intersection of music and service,” she said.

Those musical connections have helped her create a stable of musicians willing to help her write and perform songs for patients in hospice care. Among them are a former music professor and other music professionals, such as Grammy Award-winner Jesse Harris, who writes for Norah Jones, Sophie B. Hawkins, Rolling Stones backup vocalist Sasha Allen and other local, touring and internationally known musicians.

Although A Song for You has plenty of people who want songs, it needs more funding and assistance behind the scenes so it can continue to offer its services for free and to grow. In the heart of the pandemic, they sent out more than 200 songs, although this year she’s put more energy into incorporating the charity and creating a board. “But to keep the numbers that high, we’re going to need real staff,” Emily Cavanagh shared. “Running the nonprofit is most of my life. … I am the founder so a lot of the work falls to me.”

She wants to keep providing songs for free.

“While we do not charge families a dime, we are in a moment where our demand has outgrown our resources,” she said. “As a result, we are beginning to look to foundations, donors and corporate sponsors to help create a sustainable project that has again and again proven its demand and has allowed us to keep these songs free to the people who need them most.”

She’s grateful for the few volunteers she already has, but the organization needs help. “If you are a songwriter, please reach out. If you are an artist, please reach out. If you have a background in arts administration or development, those are practical ways people can give. If you are retired and have experience in fundraising or charity, please reach out. If it’s someone who works in the business or corporate world but has contacts who want to do corporate giving … Anyone who has the skill or desire to be part of a small charity with a focus on arts and end of life, please reach out.”

Her mother said families are helped immensely by receiving a personalized song, and she’s thrilled that her daughter “carried through with her dream.”

“It helps families in their extreme moments of grief,” Rosemary Cavanagh said. “It’s something they’ll have after their beloved is gone.” … It’s a celebration of a person’s story rather than mourning.”

They’ve kept song delivery method the same, typically a recorded MP3 file delivered digitally to the family. That practice has allowed artists from all over the world to participate.

“We have a lot of people from New York, Chicago, Nashville, California but also abroad in Ireland and London,” Emily Cavanagh said, noting the charity has even created two songs in Spanish. “We’d love to grow that too.”

“In a small way, I love that we get to capture somebody’s story in a three minute song. That they can hear their life reflected back to them, some sentiment reflected back to them and that their family can have this tangible moment that they can play again and again to remember that person,” she shared. “That has felt really meaningful.”

She often hears from patients or people who knew them. “One of our favorite social workers said she shared a song with a patient who was really struggling at the end,” Emily Cavanagh shared. “She played her that song and she said ‘That was my best day.’ She passed away shortly after. … We feel honored to be part of that story.”

Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.