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I went to visit my coworker this afternoon at his place (he recently sold his big house and moved into a condo so that the mortgage would be paid off and his wife wouldn’t have this burden).  Had a mild case of nerves since I didn’t really know what to expect and what my demeanor should be (e.g., is it ok to smile?  what can and can’t I say–i guess ‘how’s it going?’ is out of the question here).  I hadn’t seen him in 18 months or so and wasn’t really prepared to face this.  But I brought my music with me (Chopin Etudes, Preludes, some Liszt, and a hymnal).  Way out of my comfort zone. 

I was greeted at the door by his wife and a couple of friends of theirs from up north and my coworker’s son from his first marriage.  They seemed to be in good spirits.  I then went upstairs to the see him. 

Out of respect for him and his family, i won’t give specifics of what I saw nor what was said in that room, except that I definitely could not have prepared for this.  Cancer is much worse than I had imagined.   

I went downstairs and sat at their Kawai grand piano.  At first they wanted to see if he could come downstairs to watch, but he didn’t have the energy to do so.  Instead, they brought out the video camera (the same one that they used to film the New Year’s Eve Party 2003) and perched it on a ladder so that they could videotape my playing.  I joked that it’s okay as long as they give me royalties for it (though I got a few laughs out of it, wasn’t sure if that joke was in poor taste, but I figured they’d forgive me since I came all the way out there to do this).  His former boss earlier had recommended that I start off playing “Amazing Grace”, since that is a piece he knows very well from his earlier days, then I played Chopin Etude Op. 25 No. 7 (in G-sharp minor)–the consensus was that this piece sounded very ‘peaceful’.  Then his wife asked that I play some long-hair music like the kind I played at the New Year’s Eve Party (I don’t remember playing those…), so i figured she meant the Liszt Liebestraum No. 3 which I had dreaded about (since I hadn’t played it in over  2 years so I’m bound to hit some wrong notes).  So I played the piece and managed to get through it, though definitely not one of my better performances.  Btw, the piano was seriously out of tune, the una corda was shot, and everytime you depressed the tre corda pedal, it sounded like a bunch of little mice talking.  His wife then asked me to play something ‘hot and heavy’, like “Sinatra”.  I couldn’t remember any Sinatra melodies off the top of my head so I had to look for books near the piano, but all I could find were some broadway songs and popular ballads in the piano chair (while looking for music, i saw the “junior hanon” book that was in new condition, that I had recommended my coworker get a couple years back to work on some basic technique; back then, he asked me to teach him but I had to decline since it’d be out of the way–i live an hour away).  Instead, I opted for “It’s a Wonderful World” and played that with some improvisation.  I followed that piece with the Brahms Rhapsody in G minor that I recently learned which was probably a bad choice (if you know that piece, you know that it doesn’t sound very happy or peaceful).  I gave my disclaimer beforehand:  “It sounds very ‘rushed’, though it’s got a beautiful melody” and played it well (one of my better performances)–suprisingly.  I then ended with Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude.  Afterwards, his wife tells me she wants to play the video at his funeral.  

Afterwards, I went upstairs to see the coworker and we exchanged some last words and thanks.