The Boy Who Mastered Piano So His Mother Could Hear Him Play, And Who Died in the Oklahoma City Bombing-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor::
A piano teacher said to be named Mildred Hondorf writes a touching story about a boy named Robby who came for lessons because he wanted his mother to hear him play, but, according to the teacher, he was never very good.. Ultimately, he stopped coming, which was fine for the teacher because she didn’t see him progressing. As the first recital came up, however, she sent a notice to him about it and got a call from him saying he wanted to play and that he had been practicing, even though he had not been able to come to lessons because of his mother being sick. On the day of the recital, how showed up looking unkempt, but played a difficult Mozart piece masterfully. He told the teacher that his mother, who had been born deaf, had died that very morning and that he was sure she had heard him play for the first time. Then the story closes by the teacher saying that Robby grew into a man, served in the military, and was among those killed in the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1995 because he played the piano there.
The Truth:
:
We’ve found nothing to substantiate this story. There was no “Robby” who died in the Oklahoma City bombing, although there were several “Roberts.” No one associated with the Oklahoma City victims knows of this story. A representative of the Oklahoma City National Memorial says she has no idea who Robby may have been and is not aware that there was a piano in the Murrah Building that was bombed.
This story is very similar to “Eyes that See,” a commonly-told urban legend about a young football player who was not very good at it. He suddenly improved for a game that happened after his blind father died because, he said, it was the first time his father could see him play.