http://www.ComputerBob.com/personal/dan_the_piano_man.php .
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by ComputerBob
October 1, 2007
There's an old saying, "I cried because I had no shoes. Then I met a man who had no feet." Two days ago, I met a man in Sam's Club, and we instantly became friends. I approached Dan when I heard him playing a tiny grand piano that was for sale. He played beautifully, and I told him so. He's also a dead ringer for Hugh Laurie, and I told him that, too. Although he strikes me as a quiet, thoughtful man, he's got a great sense of humor and was eager to share a lot of interesting stories with me. He was a professional pianist but had to give it up a few years ago because of medical problems. He's had three heart surgeries, several heart attacks and several minor strokes, but you'd never know from looking at him. He also has diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but he doesn't have any medical insurance, so he can't afford to buy medicines for any of his conditions. A few years ago, medical complications caused blood vessels in his eyes to burst painfully, and he's been legally blind ever since. He lives a few doors away from Sam's Club, in a tiny mobile home with his elderly mother, who has Parkinson's disease. Every day of the year, he rides his bicycle about 5 miles to a medical research facility, where they connect him to a bunch of monitoring devices while they give him an experimental heart drug — which may or may not be just a placebo — because that's the only way that he could possibly obtain any medications at all. His mother used to enjoy spending hours every day playing games on her computer, but one day, three years ago, it refused to turn on, and it hasn't worked since.
Yesterday, I went to Dan's mobile home and fixed his mother's computer. All it needed was a new power supply. It really made my day to see her face light up when she saw her aquarium screen saver pop onto the screen for the first time in three years. I hope that Dan and I will continue to be friends.
Three weeks ago, I told you about "Dan, The Piano Man," the unforgettable character who instantly became my friend when we met at Sam's Club. Since then, it was my pleasure to spend several hours visiting with Dan at his home and talking with him on the phone about everything from computers to health, religion to music, marriage to politics, as well as both life and death.
Two days ago, when I called Dan to see how he was doing, he sounded awful. He told me that he had somehow broken a tooth in his sleep. Even worse, while he slept, the broken tooth had shredded the whole inside of his mouth, which had become painfully infected. He said that he planned to see a doctor soon, to try to get some antibiotics. Always good-humored, even while in pain, he warmly called me "buddy" several times in our conversation, and was really grateful that I had called to check on him. At the end of the conversation, we agreed that, after he gets his tooth problem fixed, we'll work on color-coding the buttons on his electronic keyboard, to make it easier for him to identify them, since his medical complications rendered him legally blind a few years ago.
Last night, when I got home from a late meeting, I found a note from my wife, telling me that Dan's brother Vaughan had called. Though Vaughan and I had never spoken or met, I had been expecting his call. Dan had told me that his brother might want me to help him with his computer, so he had given him one of my business cards back when I fixed their mother's PC.
When I returned Vaughan's call last night, he told me that at 8:00 yesterday morning, Dan stepped out the door of the mobile home that he shared with his mother and had immediately suffered a heart attack — the latest in a string of heart attacks that he's had over the past few years.
I'm very sad and very sorry to say that this one proved to be his last. Dan is gone. Vaughan promised to let me know once they've decided when and where to hold some sort of memorial service for him. After I hung up the phone, I cried.
Rest in peace, my friend. I will miss you.