A Dream of
Phil
I had a dream about Phil last
night. We were in the old Bargain Books
store that used to be in Coldwater. We
used to go to rent movies at the video store next door, and then would go to
peruse the books. We were each looking
in different sections of the store when, suddenly, he was gone. My dreaming mind instantly knew what this
meant – it was time to face the sadness of losing him. I tried to fight the tears, but they began
streaming, and then flooding, down my face as I stood there in the bookstore.
I noticed some friends were also in
the store, so I went into a more secluded corner to compose myself. It was no use. The weight of his loss bore down upon my
shoulders until my arms just hung lifeless to my sides. Then a group of friends turned the corner and
saw me, not sobbing, not crying, just standing like a withered wraith and eyes
leaking water. I couldn’t tell what was
said, only that we agreed to go and get some food.
I remained in the corner, alone,
for several minutes to pull my composure back together. I walked up to the cashier to pay for
something, and I saw tears falling like raindrops on the book as I placed it on
the counter. The next thing I knew, I
was walking into the restaurant where I was to meet my friends. I could feel going into the place that this
was the funeral dinner that I had missed.
I was given the choice to either keep my job, which I needed for my
family, or go to the funeral. I missed
it, and it has left a hole in my heart since then. Now, the door begrudgingly allowed me in, but
opened heavily in passive aggressive resistance to what was within. Once inside, the air was thick with the
smells of everyone’s perfumes that they wore to say their final goodbyes. Underneath the perfumes and colognes, you
could smell the deep fried fries and could nearly taste the steaks searing upon
the flaming grill. The air was so heavy
that I could feel it press upon your face as I walked.
Stories were told as we sat and
ate. The memories of other people’s
stories were not words, but just moving pictures on the mind’s screen that
showed, and not merely told, of the good times we had. Periodically, a memory of my own would flash
upon the screen, and the tears would fall from my chin before I even felt them
in my eyes.
I saw the
many times that he helped me change the oil in my truck when we lived in
Sturgis. I recall him sitting on a 5
gallon bucket and telling me what to do each step of the way. Then there was the time that I had to change
the brakes on my little S-10 pickup truck. Man! Was
that cold! Phil didn’t complain as he
sat there and showed me what to do. He
could have just told me to watch and learn.
We would have been done so much quicker, but he wasn’t like that. He was willing to take the time to let you
actually learn what to do by yourself.
He didn’t just teach me how to change the brakes. He taught me how to learn, and how to have
the courage and patience to do things that most people don’t want to do. Years later, armed with nothing more than a
Haynes manual (or sometimes not), a little diligence, and the confidence that
he taught me, I went on to do many other things that he never showed me how to
do. He taught me how to teach myself to
fix vehicles, and, from there, how to teach myself how to build houses. Years later, I would even help a friend
change the brakes on his Toyota. Yep, I
felt bad doing it because it wasn’t a union car. However, Phil wasn’t prejudiced, and I know
that he’d be proud of me for putting aside my biases to help a friend. Just to be sure, though, I never told him
about the Toyota ‘cause I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
Next, I saw
him as were doing things around the house.
He let me use the chainsaw when we cut wood for the Creek Road
house. He even let me go out to cut wood
on my own. This shouldn’t be a big deal,
since I was already in college, but my own dad wasn’t as comfortable letting us
do things on our own the way Phil was. He
saw that my good traits, like not being afraid of a hard day’s work, came both
from my mom and my dad, and encouraged them.
Oh, and for the record, he always said that I was stubborn, “just like
your mom,” and that we irritated each other because we were “just too much alike.” He never said a bad word about my dad, even
during the several years when I refused to speak to my dad. He would listen, but never preach. It was in that space that he made, over
several years, that I was able to repair the relationship with my first dad. Because of Phil, I was able to become friends
with my first dad, and got to know the good man that he was before he, too,
passed away. Phil let me cut wood by
myself, and he made me learn how to cut through my anger on my own as well.
As the
drink orders came to the table, I saw one of his brothers lifting a glass of
beer to toast Phil. Seeing his brother
in a dark gray shirt reminded me of the times we spent siding the Ridge Road
house in the same color. By then, I had
been working as a carpenter for a while, and had learned a trick or two, and I
built us a homemade table to help cut the siding. We spent many nights and a few weekends
siding that house.
Phil complimented me on the
ingenuity of the table, but I don’t think he realized how much he helped me to
build it. No, he never saw it while I
was making it. He did, however,
encourage me to do different things over the years, even things he didn’t
understand that well, like brewing beer and martial arts. When my mom would find out that I did crazy
things, like to Barcelona, Spain for a weekend martial arts conference, he just
chuckled and asked if I had a good time.
Mom, on the other hand, was still trying to not have a heart attack for something
that I had done a few months before. He
seemed to know, though, that I learning one thing helped to figure out
something else. It’s like how you only
apply a wrist break at hand tight when you practice in the dojo, but you torque
that son of a gun if it’s real life.
When I started working as a
carpenter, I could barely read a tape measure.
That made it tough to work on my truck too, but he let me take my time
to convert all the measurements in my head and learn. He was always happy to take the time to help
us with things like that. By the time
that I made that siding table, I knew that I was good enough to make that
table, and that it would make the whole siding job a lot easier. It was little things like this that made me
confident enough to take on buying and renovating an entire house a few years
later.
When he complimented me on the
table, though, he wasn’t saying it like a step-father, or even a father,
would. He said it in a way that made me
know he respected me. That’s why I never
liked calling him my step-dad. “Step”
means that something is in the way, but Phil was always there for us. Sometimes he was like a dad, sometimes like
an uncle, and sometimes he was just a friend.
I eventually got to a point where I would never call him “step” – it just
didn’t feel right. I would call him my
second dad if there might be confusion between him and my first dad, like the
time he came with to Cooley to see me get the award for being the top student
in my labor law class. (Otherwise, I
just told everyone he was my dad – because he was.) Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have cared that much
about the award, but, we all know that Phil loved the union and knew labor law. I felt like a 9th grade kid who
wanted to make his dad proud. Phil was a
sentimental guy. I remember him hugging
me a several times that night, and how happy I was to see him proud of me. And then, in the dream world once more, I
felt the tears leaking out of my eyes again.
I looked over and saw a couple of
his grandbabies talking and laughing, reminding me that funerals aren’t always
horrible. There are many moments of
laughter and memories too. Then I saw
Phil again. This time we were at the
accident scene where my baby brother died.
I saw him wiping the tears from his eyes and blowing his nose the way he
always used to do – where you couldn’t tell if he were sneezing or exorcising a
ghost. I saw something at the accident
that would have broken what was left of mom’s heart that morning. I wasn’t sure if I should have done what I
was thinking, so I looked to Phil and pointed.
He gave me a nod, ‘yes’, and I kept it out of mom’s sight. That’s how Phil always was. He was sentimental. I know he cried more than I did at the
funeral. But he wasn’t weak. As crushed as he was that day, he was strong
enough to help me too. He was always
happy to give a hug, and you could feel that deep down. Even in one of the most horrible moments of
my life, he was there to show us there are still good things in the world, like
friends who act as a rock to rest upon when you were struggling against the
tides of emotions.
When the
ice cream came, I looked to my side and saw one of my brothers eating ice
cream. Then it was Phil, sitting back on
a Friday night and watching TV at the Ridge Road house with a bowl of ice cream
and watching Gunsmoke. You see, with
Phil, you have to understand that the little things in life are important. It was that bowl of ice cream after putting
in a hard day’s work. I think he loved
Gunsmoke because he related to it on such a personal level. Just like Marshall Dillon, he was soft spoken,
had a quiet strength, always took care of the people he loved, and wasn’t afraid
to use a gun if he needed. Yep, there
was a guy who lost his job when Phil was a Union rep, and Phil couldn’t get him
reinstated. So, the guy started to show
up to Phil’s office and made some threats.
Phil carried his .44 magnum to work for a while after that. (So, for his younger relatives, ya’ll oughta know
that your Papaw/uncle/cousin/etc. was kind of a badass.) Unlike Marshall Dillon, however, Phil knew
who he wanted in his life and didn’t let his red-headed Miss Kitty get away.
The dream
continued on, alternating between tears and memories. I’d see a picture of him sitting in the barn
with his ’68 Dodge Charger, and then I’d feel a pang of emptiness in my gut
when I realized that neither of my daughters would ever get to meet their Papaw
Winkle. I would see him and mom on their
wedding day that April 1st so long ago. I cannot describe how thankful I am for Phil
because he took such good care of my mom.
I also felt a wrenching in my gut, knowing that he would never get a
chance to meet my wife. When I finally awoke this morning, I was
exhausted, as though I’d already spent the whole day on the emotional roller
coaster of that funeral.
For all of
Phil’s loved ones, I know that you were told why I couldn’t be at the
funeral. Nobody knew, however, how much
that tore me up inside. I’ve been so
angry that I couldn’t even write this until today. Even so, it took going through some weird
Christmas Carol kind of dream to get to this point. Phil was my father. Sometimes when I get frustrated with my
daughter, who seems to have entered the terrible two’s at only a year and three
months, I think about Phil and how gentle he always was. I may not be his blood, but I have inherited
a lot of his personality. Like the
several times in law school when I needed to make a very strong point, but I
could tell that people weren’t ready to listen.
So, like Phil would do, I’d tell a little story or give a little
homespun preface for these future lawyers like “I know ya’ll ain’t had the elite
privilege of growin’ up on a dairy farm and spendin’ yer spring breaks pitchin’
manure like I did, but that strange fragrance you detect is the unmistakable scent
from the backside of a bull . . .” People
thought it was funny, and it helped me to get the point across, but it was just
as much Phil as it was me. He was a
teacher, a father, and a friend.
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| Mom & Phil with all four of the boys. This would probably be one of Phil's favorite pictures. L to R: Jade, Kelly, Phil, Mom, Me, & Kelvin |
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