Sometimes it’s the little things.

This past Tuesday night, I saw a post on a buddy’s FaceBook page that his computer’s CPU fan had died, and he was wondering if anyone knew where he could get a new one locally for cheap.  It was an older chipset (AMD socket 939), so he was thinking he might have serious issues finding one.  I replied that I might have one that he can have, made a not to look for one the next morning, and called it a night.

The next morning (ok, closer to noon), I was checking FaceBook, and he had posted that he had check several places nearby for a new fan with no luck.  He was rather upset that ordering one would mean (at best) no fan until Monday afternoon (due to it being Thanksgiving evening).  I quickly found the part in my computer graveyard, shot him a message, and went over to his place to install it for him.  That’s when I found out why it was such a big deal.

I knew that he had been put on disability a few years back, and had to move out of his own apartment, and back in with his parent’s place.  Obviously, that’s not a great situation to begin with, and adding serious clinical depression into the mix just makes it worse.  I didn’t know about the situation with his brother.

Apparently, his brother had also struggled with depression.  Unfortunately, he turned to illicit drugs to deal with it.  Later, he apparently started throwing alcohol into the mix.  My buddy’s brother ended up OD’ing and dying in his old room at his parent’s place on Thanksgiving two years ago.

So… you can imagine that he wasn’t exactly looking forward to this holiday weekend.

My buddy’s particular escape/coping mechanism of choice is video games.  While having his computer capable of playing games taken away for a few days would normally be a “well, damned.  That sucks,” it was a devastating notion this particular week.  Me coming over with the needed part was a small miracle in his eyes.

Just thought I’d share this story.  Sometimes doing something nice that means little to you can mean the world to someone else.