I've put this one off for quite a while. I've been writing though, since the moment, Rick put a hand on my shoulder and said simply, "Phil passed away last night..."
Phil went to heaven on Oct 31, 2018.
Who was he?
In the simplest terms, he was a financial advisor. What we both couldn't have known when I started out as a wet behind the ears sales assistant was that I would be the last sales assistant he ever worked with and he would be so much more than just another financial advisor to me. He would become a friend, a confidant, a second grandfather.
Sometimes I think about Phil being in heaven and I always see him seated at some sort of celestial desk, mahogany with brass fixtures and he's dressed in a white double-breasted suit with gold pinstripes. Sort of a heavenly stock trader if you will. As ever, he's watching a ticker, maybe trading shares of commodities like gold, myrrh, frankincense, rubies, etc.
That's how I best remember him, sitting there, a be-spectacled diminutive grey-haired man behind a massive desk, his eyes fixed on the television waiting for the pundits to do their thing, then the light coming into his eyes when he fixed on his prize, usually a bio-tech of some sort and then he'd start working the phones calling all his top-tier clients, making the trades. He'd come out of his office, walk to my desk and drop a screed of stock reports on my desk saying jubilantly, "this is it Jill, Leopold Pharmaceuticals!"Make sure these are mailed out to Rupert Wallace!" Then he'd come a little closer and say, "Now, tomorrow I think we'll bottom out, but by Thursday, we're talking at least a 1-2 point spread!"
In the stock market, there are few hard and fast rules, compliance not withstanding, someone is always either in the money, at the money or out of the money. Phil was generally all three at different times, but his enthusiasm never waned. He loved the cut and thrust of the market. Truthfully, I think he would have worked for free.
After the excitement of the new hot tip died down, usually at about 10:30, Phil would leave the office and walk several laps around the parking lot getting in his exercise, he lunched around 11:00, generally Panera soup or his favorite thing, a Chik Fil-A sandwich, coming back to the office at around 12:00 whereupon he allowed himself one snack size Kit-Kat that he kept in the freezer door of the office refrigerator. Then it was back to his office to check up on the markets, snooze for a bit in his chair, and leave the office promptly at 2:00 p.m. to go home for his nap.
After all, when I started work as his assistant, he was 84 years young.
Despite the difference in our ages, Phil and I shared a lot in common, we were both stubborn Germanic types, both bull-dog in our tenacity and our work ethic, we loved cats and we loved movies. Many mornings as I came in to the office, Phil would already be in the office kitchen making the generally agreed upon worst coffee in the world, and he and I would always talk movies. Phil was unique in that, despite being born in 1930, he wasn't stuck in that time. In fact, while I enthused about movies from his childhood, Phil would scoff, full of his enthusiasm for the latest blockbuster installment in the Marvel franchise or Disney. He liked to relate in some detail all of the plot, so if I didn't want to know or hadn't seen a movie, I would have to quickly change the subject.
When the day finally came when Phil acquiesced to retire at age 86, I organized most of his retirement party, and as per usual, I worked hard on it, rushing around, checking details, working furiously to dull the ache inside about the coming days when he'd no longer be around every day to chat about movies, cats, Indy racing and life.
When the last moment came, the last piece of cake eaten, the last glass of sparkling wine drunk, before taking that last walk to his car as a full fledged broker, Phil sought me out. I was cleaning the conference room, carrying out bags of trash full of all the detritus of any good party and he stopped me, hugged me, and then, something I will never forget, he took hold of my shoulders looked me square in the eyes and said, "You. Are. Special... you're special!"
I am not humble-bragging. To this moment, I would have given anything to truly understand what he meant by that. So many times to me, I'm so ordinary, so unremarkable. When I look in the mirror, I mostly wish the other image was cuter, thinner, prettier. What Phil saw, I'll never know, but I'll never forget it.
After that, in the next year or so, he came around to visit every so often, stubbornly refusing to use the cane he'd been prescribed, so my co-workers and I took it in turn, to watch him surreptitiously, hiding behind walls and plants to avoid injuring his pride but so that we could have the piece of mind that he'd not fallen as he made his rickety way to his car. He always managed to somehow make me feel that he still thought of me as special, important.
When the moment came last autumn, that he'd had a fall that required surgery but he couldn't seem recover from, Rick, another of the brokers advised,
"Jill, if you want to see him again, I wouldn't wait."
I took the injunction for what it was, made my way to the hospital, dreading the moment where I'd have to see him, not full of life and hugs and kind words, but hooked to machines with tubes and wires everywhere, and up in that small hospital room, Phil and I had our final conversation.
The nurse insisted he could still understand despite being heavily sedated. This time it was a one-sided conversation, I did all of the talking and sometimes begging, wishing that he'd sit up and just... anything, argue, get stubborn, spoil the plot of another movie for me...I talked, telling him all about the office, the markets. I explained improv and the triangle of the scene, telling him about all the people I met doing scenes and how much I loved it. Then I just sat in the chair next his bed unable to contain my tears any longer, knowing that I was going to have to finish the conversation and not knowing how. And then I said, "Phil, you are special, you mean more to me than I have words to tell you!" And with a last look at him, I walked away.
I'm different since Phil died; I found myself wanting to share with others what he taught me. People need to be told they are special, that they mean something to you.
I was stingy with myself before Phil, now I write the email or leave the message, no matter how awkward or emotionally naked I may feel afterward. Sometimes there are replies and sometimes there is silence and that's okay too. For me, it's knowing that I've taken the time and told you how special you are and how important your presence in my life is to me. Sometimes life is just showing up, being there for, and somehow letting each other know that you are special.
In this way, for me, Phil lives on.
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