Philip was my big brother, my role model, my friend.
I grew up seeing families on tv with brothers and sisters that hated each other, always fighting, never wanting to spend time together, so I knew from an early age that Philip was special because I couldn’t relate to those shows at all. Philip LOVED the three of us girls. He played video games with us, played Pirates on the dirt piles outside when the neighbors’ houses were under construction, he never got mad about being asked to babysit, and he was always so loving and affectionate. He gave the best bear hugs, and those hugs usually led into tickle attacks which I pretended to hate but actually loved because it was a special moment I got to share with my big brother.
Philip loved to have fun. He was always laughing, telling jokes, and pulling pranks, like when he followed me around during an Easter egg hunt and hid eggs in the places I already checked, and then went back and “discovered” them at the end when he showed us the ones we missed. Or when he woke up early on Christmas morning, when I still believed in Santa, and he took everything out of my stocking, replaced it with crumpled up black paper, and let me find it thinking I actually received a lump of coal. Though it was traumatizing at the time, I can now appreciate how genius and funny that was.
I never told Philip how much he inspired me to finish college. Both of our sisters were always straight A students, which is awesome for them, but Philip and I functioned a bit differently. His life motto during school was “C’s get degrees,” and he was living proof of that. I always looked up to him, saw how determined he was to finish what he started, and I carried that with me through graduation.
Philip always had big ideas. One of my favorite memories with him was several years ago when we were all back home in Washington for a bit and Philip wanted to take the three of us on a sister date with him. He told us each to pack a towel, swim suit, tooth brush, and a winter coat, and then he drove us over an hour into the middle of a forest….. Turns out that was all a trick to throw us off of what we were actually doing which was shooting his new shot gun. Classic Philip.
The last thing I talked to Philip about was a tech issue I was dealing with. No surprise there. But if I could have said one more thing to him I would want him to know how much I treasured our relationship. I loved every minute I got to spend with him, even the 5 minutes we had when he ran across the airport just to say hi right after his flight landed and right before mine took off.We are all completely devastated to lose you, Philip, but if there’s one thing our family does best, it’s love each other, and I know you would want us to trust that God has us all in His hands. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God.” I love you so so much, big brother. See you later.