- Phil meets Susan for the first time, April 2000.
The line in the title is from “Terry’s Song” by Bruce Springsteen. I can never listen to that song without thinking of my brother Phil.
Three years ago today (March 15, 2006), my dad called me to tell me that Phil had died. Lisa and I drove from Eagle Mountain to Salt Lake in a snowstorm to handle the arrangements. I try not to dwell too much on sad anniversaries, but with Dad’s death two months ago, Dad, Mom, and Phil have been on my mind. It’s hard to lose a parent, but neither of my parents’ deaths affected me the way Phil’s death did. Before Mom died, she had been sick for a couple of years and was confined to a wheelchair. Mom was ready to go. Dad missed Mom for the next eleven years. When he died in January, I knew I would miss him, but I also believed Dad was where he wanted to be: with Mom. I don’t have any regrets about either of my parents; I was there for them when they needed me.
I wish I could say the same about Phil. Phil and I were only fourteen months apart in age; we spent most of the time between the years 1965 and 1983 together. Phil and I were best friends when we weren’t trying to beat the hell out of each other, but anyone else who tried to mess with us had better look out. We were brothers.
The last twenty years of Phil’s life were miserable, with intermittent bright spots. Phil was forty years old when he died. He was working as a police officer with West Valley P.D. He wasn’t a perfect officer, but Phil loved his job. He loved dealing with people, even when they were skells. Phil liked the people he met in the course of his job: the good, decent fellow cops whom he respected, the lady who owned the hamburger joint where he worked security, the little kids he was able to help. Phil didn’t like the cops he worked with who he considered phonies or posers, and he didn’t like people who abused their spouses or their children.
Most important to me, Phil loved my daughters, and they loved him. Phil is holding my oldest in the picture I posted above. I wish he could have spent more time with them. I said in Phil’s eulogy that my kids were lucky to have a guardian angel who was a cop, and I meant it.
- March 18, 2006
Phil’s death wasn’t suicide, but I wouldn’t exactly call it an accident either (actually - to be charitable - I would call it involuntary manslaughter.) After three years I am used to him being gone, but I haven’t made peace with it, although I am trying. I still think about Phil nearly every day, and I wonder if I could have made a bigger difference in his life, especially near the end. I really don’t know what I would have done differently; you can’t live a person’s life for him. For better or worse, people have their free agency. I did make sure that Phil had a decent funeral, and that he was respectfully laid to rest.
I wish Phil could have seen himself the way other people saw him. The greatest tragedy of Phil’s life is that he didn’t really understand how much people loved him. He based his opinion of himself on someone who didn’t deserve that trust.
Another song, “Before They Make Me Run,” by the Rolling Stones, also reminds me of Phil. In that song Keith Richards - Phil's favorite Stone - sings, “Gonna find my way to heaven, `cause I did my time in hell.” That line could have been Phil’s epitaph. I hope Phil did find his way to heaven, because he deserved it. Phil was a good guy. He had his faults, but the good in him far outweighed the bad, and I don’t think he ever quit trying.
In the end, what else matters?
