Nashville singer-songwriter MELD took to the internet on Saturday in the hopes of procuring a “miracle” for her father’s 50th birthday. Her father, Christopher Dewey, is a lifelong Deadhead who is currently suffering battling stage four cancer, and since he can’t be on Shakedown Street waving his finger in the air, his daughter, born Melanie Dewey, went on social media in search of a miracle.
Related: MELD Aims To Be The Heart Of It, Rather Than A Part Of It, On Self-Titled Debut [Interview]
In a Facebook post, Dewey attached a video of her father, who instructed his daughter that if she wants a miracle, she needs to walk around, waving her finger all day. Melanie, in turn, posted the video with the following caption, asking for help connecting with Grateful Dead members:
Hey y’all MELD here- as you know from the last few posts, my dad is super sick with stage 4 cancer, and he’s a huge deadhead. I posted this video of him in lots of Grateful Dead/Phish/jam band groups (of him asking for his miracle Lol… only the headiest friends of mine will get it 😛 …) and have had nearly 1000+ comments likes and well wishes! I am super determined to take it to the next step if possible, and try and get the video to The Grateful Dead members themselves to give him well wishes and ask folks to pray, etc.
The internet did what it does best as Melanie’s digital finger waving rippled across the Deadnet and somewhere, somehow, made it into the proper hands along the way. Bob Weir offered Chris a birthday wish and sent some inspiring words from Twitter. Dead & Company guitarist John Mayer went a step further by sending a video birthday wish to Chris. In the clip, which Melanie posted to her official MELD Instagram account, Mayer noted that while he is unable to produce miracles, he is able to help look for them. By sticking his own lone index finger in the air, John has joined the search for Christopher Dewey’s much-needed miracle.
See the full posts below, and keep looking for that miracle for Chris. We’re rooting for you!
[UPDATE – July 4th, 2020]: Sadly, Chris Dewey passed away on July 4th, 2020. As Melanie Dewey noted in a post announcing her father’s passing, “The last song I played for him was ‘Daughters’ by John Mayer, the song we were going to dance to at my wedding…and the last semi- coherent words he said to me and my brother were ‘Thank you for making today so special, It is greatly appreciated.'” Read MELD’s full post below: