Sammy Hagar was able to reconnect with Eddie Van Halen before he died. In an interview with Variety, Hagar says that comedian/actor, George Lopez helped make that happen.
Hagar didn’t have Eddie’s phone number and his initial attempts to make contact proved unsuccessful. He said “I was calling his brother, I was calling his manager, I was calling his friends, and I’d say, ‘Hey, tell Ed, give him my phone number. Tell him if he ever wants to talk to me, I really, really want to talk it out, help him and see what I can do.'” He went on to say, “I told them, ‘I want to be his friend, I want to bury the hatchet,’ but they never got it done.”
George Lopez is a mutual friend of theirs and gave Hagar the number and encouraged him to make the effort. He told Hagar, “He loves you brother, you need to reach out.”