Raymond Peter Phillips

“I am trying to remember you and let you go at the same time.” – the mourn

I’ve been a bit MIA the past couple of months but the first Christmas came and went, the first New Year came and went and now here I am. By ‘the first’ I mean the first Christmas and New Year without my Dad, Raymond Peter Phillips. I didn’t know what the hell to name this post so I just named it after him. I don’t know what to even say but I know I need to say something so here we go.

I can’t possibly tell you how I feel through a blog post but I can tell you what I think about when I think of Raymond Peter Phillips. When I think about my Dad I think about how much he loved beer, how much he loved a good swear in the right company (especially mine), how much he loved films like ‘Raging Bull’, ‘Scent of a Woman’, ‘The Godfather’ and anything directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I think about how much he loved music, playing the guitar and piano and watching ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’, how much he loved going for a drive with my sister Faye singing Stevie Wonder songs. I think about how he was such a respected man, a fair man and how passionate he was for justice and doing the right thing. I think of him as the only man I’ve ever really trusted, someone I knew I could rely on who would have done anything for me. I think about being a little blonde girl with pigtails dancing on his feet.

Unfortunately, I also think about the injustice of his death and so many other people’s deaths caused by cancer. I think about the sad times when he was on his walking stick, using a stairlift, eventually in a hospital bed in our living room. I think about the pain he suffered, the worry he felt, how he slowly lost his mobility and independence, I think about how I saw him cry for the first time in my life. I think about how he won’t meet my children or be at my wedding. I think about how much I would lie in bed at night wishing I could have turned back time and been a little blonde girl with pigtails dancing on his feet again.

I’m not a little blonde girl with pigtails anymore. I am now a sassy, dry, foul-mouthed, 23-year-old redhead and a lot of the little things that defined my Dad define me too. I still look at my phone when it buzzes hoping it’s a text from him, I still see things and think about how much I wish he could see them too and I always wish I could sit on the sofa all day and watch ‘Bottom’ with him. In this particular case, I do not personally believe in the clichés such as ‘time heals everything’ and ‘he’s watching over you’ but I believe wholeheartedly that in a way a person is never really gone if you’re keeping them alive in your mind and in other peoples.
All in all, grief is the most confusing, painful and draining thing you could ever imagine. Six months have gone by and the people who were there the weeks after my Dad’s death are gradually fading out but I will do everything I can to remind people who my Dad was and what he meant to me.

 

Thanks for reading,