My Friend Shawn Dailey

Another reminder tomorrow ain't promised.

My friend Shawn had a seizure this week that turned into a fatal heart attack. He was 35.

I first met Shawn and his girlfriend, Karen, while bartending at The Patio in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. He and Karen both drank Wild Turkey Honey and Bud Light and would occasionally split one of our famous Italian subs. One time he brought in his three daughters because he came home and couldn’t enter his house due to a taped-off crime scene where somebody had been shot at Bellows and Central Avenues. (The victim would later survive.)

Shawn became more than friend during my last week working at the Patio. I knew he was a master craftsman and I mentioned how I wanted to learn to do more with my hands than type sentences online or slang drinks to the criminally insane for tips.

He said he had a new project, a new deck for a woman, starting on Monday in Hilliard, if I wanted to join his crew and learn the ropes. The offer stunned me because there were a lot of laborers at the bar, and Shawn was held in the highest of esteem. I had heard multiple people try to join his crew only to be rebuffed. Shawn had a keen sense of people who were willing to work and those that just wanted to get drunk and talk about it.

I said I didn’t have a car and wouldn’t until sometime next year when I paid an orthodontist in Worthington to fix my teeth after my near-fatal car accident this past summer. He said that ain’t no problem; I lived right down the road. He would pick me up at 8 a.m. sharp.

And so he did. On the way there, I mentioned it’s funny we were doing a deck. I had always wanted to know how to build a deck. That and a bathroom.

Shawn smiled. “I pretty much make my living off decks and bathrooms,” he said. “And I do well enough for myself I can take stop working from mid-November to mid-January and concentrate on my real passion — spending time with my family.”

We did three decks and two bathrooms. I didn’t learn enough to do either project on my own, but I did prove to Shawn I was reliable enough to be ready to work at 8 a.m. five days a week. He said I would know all I needed to know if I worked with him from January through the summer.

I last saw Shawn at The Patio on Saturday when I went in for a victory shot after Ohio State trounced Michigan State. I bought him a shot of American Honey and said I was coming for my master certification in decks and bathrooms come January 15th.” He smiled and said I’m glad to hear it, buddy. And then he left the bar to go be a family man.

I heard about his death on Wednesday night, when I went into The Patio for my last sips of vodka before turning the cursed age of 34 the next day.

“Did you hear about Shawn?” my former coworker, Michelle, asked.

My heart sank. It’s never good when people ask if you’ve heard about another regular at the bar and they’re not there. It’s either jail or the hospital or the morgue with a .0001 percent chance they won the $1,000 Dollar Board drawing that week.

“He had a seizure. Turned into a heart attack. His 14-year-old daughter found him shaking on the floor and called 9-11 while his younger daughter tore out of the house onto Central trying to flag down a cop.”

“Oh my God,” was all I could manage. “I had just seen him the other day.”

“Me too,” said Michelle. “He came in on Monday. Seemed 100% fine.”

There have been two or three times in my life when I thought this was the big one; one of my vital organs had declared a wildcat strike and walked off the job.

It’s a petrifying experience. I routinely say, “I have seen enough of this world,” as if in those times my first thoughts weren’t of how much more I had yet to see. My second thought was who was going to take care of my cats? Nobody could love them as much as me.

“Are you alright, D.J.?” Michelle asked.

“No,” I said, thinking about the kind of terror that must have gripped my friend’s heart when he realized he was dying at 35-years-old as a father of three daughters and a girlfriend he planned to marry after the pandemic. “I think I’ll have another double,” I said. The man died only a year older than me.

“Shit’s sad,” Michelle said as the hypnotic liquid drizzled into my glass. “Just a reminder that tomorrow is never promised.”

#JUSTICEFORCASEYGOODSON: If you have time this weekend, please come to one or both protests to demand justice for Casey Goodson, the 23-year-old black man who was gunned down by Franklin County Deputy Jason Meade. If you come, please respect the wishes of Goodson’s family and keep these protests free of vandalism and other forms of hooliganism.

• Protest tonight starting at 6 p.m. at the Sheriff’s Office (373 S. High Street) with a march to the Statehouse to follow.

• Protest Saturday at noon at the Statehouse (1 Capitol Square).

  

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