Love's Last Refrain

This musician calms the dying and soothes their families

- Jen McCaffery

WHEN FREDDIE FULLER arrived to perform in the hospital room in Temple, Texas, Pam Golightly worried it was already too late. Her stepfather, Dennis Strobel, was dying.

At 88, Strobel had just been moved to the palliative care unit. After spending five days by his side, Golightly could tell that something had changed in the Korean War veteran. He had become agitated, and a nurse had told her Strobel’s time was near.

“You’re probably wasting your time,” Golightly told Fuller.

But Fuller, wearing a cowboy hat and toting a Taylor acoustic guitar, shared with her what medical professionals had told him time and time again over the years: Hearing may be the last sense to go.

“Let me go in and play,” Fuller said. “It’s as much for you as it is for him.”