I remember getting the phone call on October 1, 1987 from my sister, Diana. She had given birth to her 3rd son, Phillip, and all was well. I drove the 6 hours to where she and her family lived and spent a couple weeks taking care of Phillip's brothers and helping my sister out around the house and with her new baby.
As my nephews got older, they would come and spend some time with us on the farm each summer. Phil continued to visit us alone (without his brothers) every summer until he started college. Each year I would say, "Phil, this will probably be your last year to visit us, you're getting older now and other things will become more important (understandably so)". His reply would always be, "Aunt Jackie, you always say that but I will always come back to see you. Someday, when I'm out on my own, I want to live half way between you and Uncle Chuck and my mom and dad so I can come and visit you all the time".
On May 16, 2012, I got another phone call about Phillip--one I honestly didn't see coming...
Phillip had been killed while riding his motorcycle.
For the past 2 weeks I have struggled with the emptiness in my life only my nephew could fill and wrestled with how to say goodbye to a 24-year-old young man who seemingly had his whole life ahead of him. He was to be married October 5, 2012 to his childhood sweetheart, Taylor, a girl he met when he was only 15 and she was 13 years old--their wedding website still counting down the days until they would be married. The sadness I feel for her and others close to Phil is almost overwhelming at times.
Perhaps it's more difficult to say goodbye to someone who should have said goodbye to you first. Maybe just the sudden loss is harder to believe than if he'd been ill. Whatever the case, saying goodbye is never easy and in this case, at least in my heart, is not necessary.
Why?
Because I can still recall with such clarity:
The little boy filled with such joy and awe over the simplest things--doing farm chores early in the morning, "helping" me make pancakes (by flipping them for me), the funny things he would say and do that made him Phillip...
The teenager spending hours on the phone with his first and only girlfriend, watching 50's monster movies together until the wee hours of the morning while we ate much too much candy...
The young man who became a police officer so he could protect those who could not protect themselves...
These and so many other memories of Phillip will be part of me until I join him in heaven someday. So, for me to say goodbye just does not make sense. Maybe it's just my way of coping with his loss for now. Maybe it's because, as I get older, I understand more and more how all our lives are but a mist, a vapor that is here and gone before we know it. Maybe it's Phil's lasting legacy to me to live life to the fullest--which he most certainly did.
How do you say goodbye to someone who is still alive in your heart? You don't...you just don't...
Shepherdess Blog
May 30, 2012
Copyright Jackie Deems
