Reflection from Phil's teacher

This is an email that I was sent during the week from Phil's teacher Jenni. Kris x

As you know, I was Phil’s Year 6 Core Teacher at Chairo. He commenced Year 6 as a cheeky, up-beat young man. It was difficult to share his diagnosis with the class at the commencement of Term 2 and I think that as a class we drew closer to Phil through prayer.

I remember Phil making a visit to the class as he (and for memory your mum) were on their way to the Children’s Hospital for the initial surgery on his leg. Prior to his visit I had tried to explain to the other students the procedure that Phil was having undertaken, a difficult concept for 12 year olds to fathom. Anyway, when Phil arrived, we had both classes of Year 6 in the one room; Phil was open to questions and answered with a mixture of maturity and cheekiness.

Of course, the inevitable question was asked; ‘How do you feel about having your leg chopped off?’ I, for one, was stunned into silence as this mature response was made; ‘If God needs me to have a artificial leg for me to complete the work that he wants me to do; then I am happy to go ahead with the surgery.’ WOW! What a witness.

Through all my contact with Phil, that is what I will always remember; his desire to live for God, regardless of the circumstances, his passion for God’s creation (both natural environment and humankind alike) and his interest in all the people that he met. He remains my HERO, an example of who I am in Christ and how I should reflect God and His love in all that I think, say and do.

4 weeks

Also known as one month. Already a month? Or only a month?
I wonder if it ever starts to make sense?
I'm almost finished my degree, and last week I found out where I got a job for next year. It made me cry. I just wanted to share it with Phil. He loved to tease me about being a nurse (among other things!). I knew he was proud of me though.
We got our doorbell fixed the other day. For about the last 15 years it has made a strangled once-musical noise. The story goes that someone came to fix it, said he'd come back with a part, and never returned. Phil didn't get to hear the new doorbell.
These things are strange. My phone will beep, and I'll remind myself it's not Phil asking when I'll be home. I can't go chill out with him, or tell him that funny story I know he'd love. So instead I just cry, and miss him a lot.
Melinda

Phil's facebook.

We decided to deactivate Phil's facebook today.....  there is a new side panel that suggests people you haven't written to for a while.  Phil's face popped up suggesting that both Mum and I should reconnect with him.......  this is one of the album's Phil had up...a rafting trip with Ben...I like the annotations that he wrote to go with the pictures.  Kris x

Ok so heres the story. Ben and i decided we wanted to do something a bit different on a camping trip. So we built a raft. It was made of a ply board and pine box, parts of an old bed and truck inner tubes. We even had camp chairs mounted on it for a bit of extra comfiness.

We paddled around for the first day and discovered that it was incredibly stable. So we went back to shore grabbed the gas stove and some sausages and cooked dinner in the middle of a lake.

The next day we decided to mount the sail...which was a complete and utter disaster. Then we decided to try to paddle to a point that looked about ten kilometers away. It took about three and a half hours to get there. Then we walked back to the campsite to get the car to pick up the raft. It turned out that our "10" kilometer adventure was more like a much less impressive 2.

 

Today is Dad's birthday. Lots of yummy food, Phil would have enjoyed it.

I remember when Phil....

I changed my initial title for this blog...at first it was "Remembering Phil".....It's funny, well more strange I suppose cause when I typed the words "Remembering Phil..." it means that he's gone...and I still don't think I've quite realised that yet.

While we are finite humans when people are alive the potential to create memories and have pictures taken seems infinite.  But as soon as someone dies, that number doesn't grow anymore... in fact it feels like it shrinks as you forget things....

So I thought we would start a section on this blog called I remember when Phil, where we (that's you included), can post memories of him.....  just add a comment with your memory to the bottom of this post.  Feel free to write more than one....or to come back randomly and add a new one you remember!
If you have trouble posting comments, email them to phillingyouin@gmail.com and I'll put them up.

They don't need to be long.... 

Here are two that popped into my head:

-I remember when Phil was little and he couldn't say my name properly (Kristen is particularly difficult), he called me Kissn.

-I remember when Phil had an accident involving putting a spoon almost right through his tongue....which is why he called lollies wowwies for most of his primary school years.

Kris x

the zoo...

On Saturday some of us (Mum, Dad, Mel, Jenny, Renay and I) went to the Zoo.  The bears were really active and it reminded me of this day.

....17 days....

It been about 17 days and about 11 1/2 hours, in some ways that is a long time, it's over half a month, which is the same as more than two weeks, but it feels like no time has passed at all to me. 

Friends I have come to know on this journey have a blog they started for their son, Ben, who passed away from cancer last December.  It was their blog that motivated me to start this one. When I read back to the posts that were written by his parents and family last December the same words want to come out of my mouth, but that would be plagiarism.... :)  But reading their thoughts and feelings gives me some idea of where to start, what to do next, and also the fact thtat it won't sort itself out overnight....  It also gives me some insight into the brains of my parents (as most of the posts are written by Ben's mum and dad, Lindy and Chris).  Anyway they shared the link to this blog on their blogspot, so I wanted to do the same.

To go to their most recent posts... click here.
To have a look at December click here.
It's nice to have other people to share the journey with, meaning you, and also people who are as Lindy said "cancer companions", people who are on a similar journey to us. 

Kris x

Finally!!! All about eggs....

I hope that this works....so youtube only lets you load clips that are less than 10 minutes... so I cut the doco into 3 sections..worked like a dream.
Here they are,  the first one is short, the second two are longer.  Hopefully it works well this way (also the file size is HEAPS smaller than the other way).

(for any computer nerds out there...the reason that the audio wouldn't sync was that the quality wasn't good enough..... to fix that involved making it too huge for anyone to watch!...well as far as my small brain could gather)

Enjoy!  (I watched again today, very amusing).

all about eggs problems...

Kris told me she'd put the video up so I had a watch, and found that the sound was out of sync.  I've removed the link for now, and Kris and I will have a fiddle and try to figure it out and put it back up for you all as soon as we can.
Making All About Eggs was such a lot of fun.  I would come home tired from uni and Phil would pester me until I would agree to work on it for a while that day.  I'm so glad we got it finished, it is such a wonderful memory to have of Phil, and some of the great times we had together. 
Mel

All about eggs...

I bet your wondering what this post has to do with anything.  Well, let me enlighten you.

I feel that I shouldn't even be writing this post at all....it should be Melinda.

Melinda, apart from putting up with fat jokes from Phil, has a fantastic sense of humour.  She and her friends over the years have created and filmed documentaries -all about leaves,  all about toothpaste, all about books, all about tropical tree eating seals.  The most recent creation earlier this year is "All about Eggs",  featuring Melinda and Phil.

It is a large file as it is a 20 minute film, but as it was only made earlier this year I thought it would be nice for people to see.  It is Phil when he was well, hopefully how most of you remember him. 

I put it as a movie here, but I think it might slow things down to much....so if you have time, click on this link and check out Mel and Phil.

Click play on the movie, and then after some of it loads it should start..... (it will take a while, i recommend a tea break or a hang the washing on the line break (for the men of course)), that way it won't keep pausing all the way through.

Kris x

The strange thing....

When we started this blog in early February it was because we knew Phil was terminal.  Not that those words actually ever make sense to anyone.  It was interesting blogging on a number of levels....

a) Phil was known to read the blog...and I think he has even posted on it once.  In July after he came back from hospital after his stroke he read the blog, hopefully not the posts from mid-June when he nearly died, but we'll never know.

b) It's hard writing or talking about the fact that someone is going to die.  In fact I don't think we every actually wrote on the blog that he was.... Melinda and I cringed every time we typed it and then deleted it again.

The question of "How's Phil?" over this past year has been a tricky one....cause whatever the answer it was inside the parameters of someone who is dying (at a faster rate than the rest of us),  so "Yeah, Phil is really well at the moment.", didn't actually mean the same thing as "Yeah, Jenny was sick last week, but she's better now", but knowing whether the people who asked the question understood those parameters or not was an entirely different question all together. 

 c) Going with that, almost the same thing is the hope that people can read through out polite language to see what is actually going on that we aren't writing/talking about.....(which isn't always really a fair assumption)... I'll give you an example.....  In the blog this year, we never talked about Phil's treatment e.g. Chemo... that's because he wasn't treated.  Not this year.  He had a little bit of radiation at some point this year and an tablet chemo at some point but not to try to cure him.   He was being treated as that horrible word a "Palliative"patient.

According to the dictionary on my mac computer - Palliative is an adjective and means:  relieving pain or alleviating the problem without dealing with the underlying cause.   

Not intended to cure, but to keep comfortable. 

Not sure this post made much sense at all, but anyway, I should be sleeping.

Kris x

reality and small shirts...

My phone beeped a little while ago, and I thought, it's Melinda telling me that Phil's back and it's all a dream.  He's looking forward to seeing me on the weekend.

On a lighter note...slightly humorous....

Ben was putting on his suit for the funeral the other day....and his shirt wouldn't fit, it was too small........ Phil was cremated wearing the suit he wore to Ben's wedding...but wearing Ben's shirt not his own....woops.

Kris

One week and one day.

It's been over a week now.  I don't think it has really sunk in yet.  Ben and Lovy went back to Melbourne on Sunday and I'll be going back to college this afternoon.  I suppose that is when reality will really start to set in.

I'm uploading the copies of the program the eulogies I have so far (one more I haven't got a copy of yet).

I have also made the tribute video into a movie file so I will upload it at some point when I figure out how.   I have been learning how to use blogger this week.....quite a challenge.

I don't think I'm quite ready for this blog to stop yet, but not really sure actually.  Will upload more photos too, just learning about how to do it!

Thankyou for everyone's support.  We have felt so loved and cared for.

Feeling a bit sad at the moment, but that's ok. 

Kris xx

Saturday October 3rd

This is just a quick entry... well that's what I'm thinking as I start typing anyway.

Today was a hard, but a really good day. Thankyou so much to all the people who came... (the funeral sign-in book had 497 names not including our own.

We really felt loved and supported. The weather even warmed up in the afternoon, blue sky and sunshine.

I think Phil would have approved.

I will be uploading the photo tribute and eulogies etc., in the next couple of days. Tomorrow is Mum's birthday so it will be after that some time.

Kris x