R.I.P. Don Krueger

On Saturday night I received the phone call that I had been waiting for for years: my friend Don Krueger had passed away after living with multiple sclerosis (MS) for over 4 decades.

I originally met Don in 2005 when I began working for the MS Society of Canada. Don had been volunteering with the organization for many years. As a matter of fact, he organized the first MS Walk in the Fraser Valley. For a number of years he also had been organizing the Chilliwack Self Help group for people with MS.

As I spent more time with Don Krueger and his wife Carroll, he and I realized we had quite a bit in common. Besides both of us being a Pisces, our personalities were also very similar. Then there was the fact that both of us were musicians. Before MS took away his fine motor skills, Don was a professional piano player.

When Don and Carroll decided to renew their wedding vows on March 25, 2006, they hired my Bassic Sax Jazz Ensemble to perform. When I asked them if they had a particular song that they wanted to hear, they told me that their song was Forever And For Always, by Shania Twain. I arranged a smooth jazz rendition of the tune that my band then performed a couple of different ways over the course of the evening.

Unfortunately, it was only a few weeks after this vow renewal in 2006 that Don was injured when he fell out of his wheel chair. That event started a downward spiral characterized by an incredible roller coaster that saw his family and friends called to his bedside so many times over the years to say “goodbye”, that Don was likened to the Energizer Bunny: He just kept going, and going, and going.

Don Krueger March 17, 1942 – April 25, 2014

On April 25, 2014, this Engerizer Bunny’s batteries finally ran out of power. Don Krueger passed away in his residence at Zion Park Manor in Cloverdale. For the man who had battled a debilitating and progressive disease for as many years as he did, the fight was finally over.

For those of us who were fortunate enough to know Don and were able to call him a friend, we all have our favourite memories of this charismatic man, who had a twinkle in his eye. My favourite memory has to be from a show that he and Carroll attended at the Gourmet Gallery, which coincidentally enough, was on April 24, 2009.

Deception, the blues band I worked in for over 9 years, was performing at the Gourmet Gallery on a Friday night. After having been in the hospital for over a week, Don had just been released a day or two before. Family and friends had all been by his bedside to say “goodbye”, but like he did before, and like he would do some many times after, Don rallied and came home. Then just a couple of days later he was at the Gourmet Gallery enjoying a Sleeman’s Honey Brown Lager. My partner jokingly said to him: “You look pretty good for a dead man.” Don laughed; he thought that was the funniest thing in world.

That night was a really good night. Besides his wife, Don had his daughter-in-law and her partner there, and my friend Jane—an opera singer who is just crazy-fun as a party companion—sat at their table too. I wandered over quite a bit over the course of the evening, sat on the arm of Don’s wheelchair, and played saxophone from there.

All good things…

This morning at 11:00, all of us who knew and loved Don will come together to celebrate his life. And although it is a celebration of life, I can’t help but feel sad at the same time. It is the end of an era. Four decades is a hell of a long time to live with MS. Don Krueger lived his life to the fullest, and packed as much into each day he could. And really, we could all take a lesson from this man’s play book.