An eight-year-old Surrey boy got a surprise course in the power of humanity when he arrived at his guitar lesson Saturday.
Soreya Sharma bought her son Saahyl an old instrument online, and had recently taken it in to the Tom Lee Music store in Surrey to get restrung.
“You can only do so much with an old guitar,” said Kurt Thys, Tom Lee Music’s Surrey branch manager.
Through conversation, Thys and his staff learned Saahyl is a cardiac patient who underwent open heart surgery when he was a baby.
“As she was talking, the story started coming out and it just was really heartbreaking and touching,” Thys said.
Thys decided to get his number one restringer, Lorenzo Perreto, to do a rock star tune-up of Saahyl’s ailing strings.
When the job was done and the guitar was returned to the boy, he and his mother revisited the store hours later to personally thank the employees with freshly baked cookies and a handwritten note.
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Thys and his team were so moved they knew they had to do one better and pay it forward again. Together, they pitched in hundreds of dollars to purchase Saahyl a brand new instrument.
On Saturday, the surprise gift was unveiled to the young guitarist as his parents watched proudly and filmed his reaction.
“Rip it, buddy,” Thys told Saahyl as the child started to carefully open a long triangular box.
“There you go, like it’s Christmas,” Perreto added as Saahyl began to unwrap the present more vigorously.
Inside the box was a brand new, freshly painted guitar that Thys said Yamaha Canada agreed to upgrade to twice its value, once the corporation knew who would be receiving it.
“Whoah — is that? — amazing!” Saahyl exclaimed as he thanked Thys and Perreto for the unexpected gift.
After a quick tune-up, staff outfitted Saahyl with a guitar strap and case, and also presented him with a guitar-shaped cake for the occasion.
Then it was time for the music lesson he initially came there for.
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“Music heals, it’s the language of the soul,” said Thys. “I think he’s on the right path.”
The acoustic gift has given the young guitarist a rock ‘n’ roll ambition to fulfill even bigger dreams.
“Maybe one year and then I can probably get a rock guitar and start rocking out, get one of these big things,” Saahyl said, pointing to an amplifier.
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