Daniel's Piano Song

Two years ago on Memorial Day, May 28th, 2012 my brother Daniel died by suicide and went to live in heaven.

At age 16, Daniel was diagnosed with schizophrenia and went through his first psychotic episode. He loved to play the piano, and he was gifted in the ability to hear a song on the radio, find the tune easily, and play it without any sheet music. He also liked to create his own songs. He had one song in particular that he composed and would play almost every day for years to an annoying degree.

After he passed away, an e-mail was forwarded to my parents from one of his friends.  It included a cell phone recording of the song that he always played. In the e-mail, Daniel told his friend about a time that he was in the hospital and found an open piano in the patients’ common area. He sat down and started playing his song, when after a while he noticed that all of the patients had stopped talking. He wrote that the room fell silent and there was a sense of peace. From then on, whenever Daniel was anxious he would play this song.

Below is a surprise film that I made as a gift for my parents that is set to a re-recording of the song that Daniel used to play. After the film is the original cell phone recording of Daniel playing.

Daniel's Piano Song from Esther Boller on Vimeo.

I am so thankful for my friend Jonah Baker, who did a beautiful job of re-interpreting and recording the song for this film. You can check out his work here.

Thank you to everyone who has said such kind words of support to my family and me.  The amount of love that has been shown these past two years is really beautiful and has been so appreciated.