When I was in seventh grade, I met a man named Mike Rossi.
Mike kind of sort of lived in the house behind me and was the husband of my mom's friend who also lived behind me. I say kind of sort of because he still had a home in Troy, Michigan that he was very attached to. Mike taught me to play guitar and how to sing, kind of. He was in his mid fifties and had all gray hair. He was a recent cancer survivor.

One day, I was driving to the guitar store to buy some strings with Mike, and he turned on the radio and U2 was on. I was wearing a beanie because I thought it looked cool, and Mike pointed at me and said I looked like the guitarist from U2 because of my beanie. I asked him why he thought so many old musicians wear beanies all the time, and he told me it was because they were hiding their bald heads. I thought it was funny but useless information.

A few months later while I was on another trip to the guitar store with Mike, he had to pull over from stomach pains. I figured he had eaten something bad. The next day he left back for Michigan.

I was sitting on my bed playing guitar when my mom walked into my room and told me that Mike's cancer had come back, even worse, and that he only had six months or so to live. It was the first time I had cried over someone dying.

I saw Mike a few weeks later and he seemed just fine. Occasionally he'd duck out for a few minutes but then he'd come back and continue talking about Bob Dylan as if nothing was wrong. He'd even pluck a few chords on his guitar and make up a song about how he wasn't really dying. We had several meetings like this, and in between he'd fly back up to Michigan to be where he felt the most at home.

One day while he was away, his wife, Suzanne, told me that things were getting really bad and that I may not see him again. She was going to fly back up to Michigan to be with him. Before she left, I dug through my dresser drawers and pulled out my beanie. I remembered what Mike had said about balding musicians and figured he might need it, so I gave it to her and told her to make sure he got it.

She was right. I never saw him again. Michael died a couple months later.

After that, Suzanne came back down to stay at the house behind me for a while. She was going to move out and move back up to Michigan. One day my mom went over to see her while I was out, and when I came home my mom said that Suzanne had some things from Mike to give me.
I went over to her house behind mine later that day, and received Mike's guitar and my beanie.
She told me that he was glad that I remembered.