Aidan felt safe at choir, changed by the communal act of sharing his voice – then he was diagnosed with cancer

Aidan always processed things alone, making sense of them first before returning to the world – choir was somewhere he couldn’t hide Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

Six months before Aidan was diagnosed with cancer, we went to see our daughter’s music concert at her high school. She was in one of the choirs and they were performing an arrangement of a song by legendary Melbourne choir leader, Sue Johnson.

As we worked our way through the bag of chips we’d bought along in lieu of dinner, the choir sang. A wash of 40 young voices, woven together.