“We search their eyes for all the secrets they can’t give us.
“The truth of ourselves.”
Phillip could never deal with the truth his entire earthly life.
Ever.
It was much too painful.
He grew up in Connecticut and his father was cold and indifferent to him. When his brother, Jack, died at age two, Phillip was made to feel he was the cause and his father never again treated his remaining son as a loved child. His mother was too passive and uninterested in what was happening between father and son.
Phillip, as a young man, was striking, tall, trim, even distinguished some would say. His smile had magnitude and his blue eyes seemed magnetic. He developed a veneer of gentleman attributes, and yet, underneath was a scared little boy who had ceased feeling anything except anger again. He had been told as a young man he didn’t matter. His attempts to prove he was important did not change the father-son dynamic.
Phillip was graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in engineering and made a successful career, mostly in California. He still had self-destructive tendencies and frittered away his considerable earnings on constant moving from Santa Rosa, Calif. to Salt Lake City, back to Connecticut, and again to California. It seemed no amount of activity could give him peace and his father’s critical voice always was yelling at him through the mist of years.
Time passed and Phillip was now an old man.
With his proliferate spending, he had no savings and lived on the modest Social Security check each month. His wife, Dorothy, had died and he lost a son to cancer. He chose to never grieve those passings and lived in his one room apartment with their urns, with their ashes. What kind of soul lives with ashes when real people wanted to be his friend?
He never again would relate successfully to another person. The women he dated easily could fall in love with him if he had ever given them that chance.
Phillip, whose self-esteem had hit rock-bottom, turned to religion and to alcohol for solace. It provided him a modicum of comfort. Daily Mass and rosary became his lifesaver. His dress was, as always impeccable. He worked out at the gym three times a week so his body was trim and taunt.
Those he met never knew his background story and thought his mannerly deportment authentic. Why isn’t he married thought the women? What a gentleman, thought the men.
One woman he had met on social media interested him so much that he fancied himself in love with her. But she wanted a real relationship not a pretend one and she left him. Did he cry at all? No, because his heart was so cold and unfeeling that he passed it off as another loss in a string of life losses.
He did not feel he deserved friendship. And yet his inner soul remained warm and loving, unexpressed. He enjoyed cooking and gardening and swimming. He had been on the swim team in high school. He liked to grill steaks. He bought annuals in the Spring and planted them with care. And yet, the past dominated his every waking moment and about which he refused to address so he could live a life of contentment. His was a matchless shoe walking through life.
Phillip passed this earthly life June 24, 1982. His ashes were unclaimed.