Cheryl Doran

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Crystal, who went by the name Cheryl, was a 76 year old woman who is diagnosed with COPD and had a life expectancy of less than six months in the Spring of 2019. For her final Dream, she wanted to get her lullaby “Close Your Eyes, Little Baby” professionally recorded.

She has the rights to both the lyrics and the background music. This song was meaningful to her because she took care of countless children over the years and had seen the way her song was able to soothe them to sleep.

When she was growing up herself, she did not receive a lot of support from her family and she was made to feel like she was unintelligent and worthless. She only went to school for four years and had to teach herself to read and write after her brother made her promise she would try to learn. She was so proud of her love and skill for writing.

She took joy in helping bring comfort to children the way she wished she would’ve received it back when she was their age. She said to me over the phone, “Nobody thought I would be good at anything, but I know now that I am good. I am good at writing and taking care of others.”

For her final Dream, she wanted to leave behind a legacy of comfort and care for others to listen to whenever they need it. She contacted a non-profit called The Dream Foundation who provides end of life dreams for terminally ill adults. The Dream Foundation contacted me and asked me to sing and produce the recording of Chery’s lullaby. I could not have been more proud and honored to immortalize her beautiful and soothing song. I called my dear friend, the monstrously talented Daniel Berkman, to partner with me on this project. I produced the recording, played autoharp and sang while Daniel played guitar and strings. Daniel also engineered, and mixed the recording.

The Dream Foundation sent out a team of a photographer and videographer to capture the event and a beautiful video was created for Cheryl and her family and the entire staff at The Dream Foundation to enjoy. Cheryl wrote me a wonderful letter of gratitude and we spoke on the phone at length as well. I would have loved to meet her but she was in Arizona and not well enough to travel.  It was so gratifying and heart warming to know I had helped to make Cheryl’s dream come true.