LAST night, as I used to be putting our three-year-old daughter, Rose, to bed, the exhaustion hit me hard. The past 72 hours had been a whirlwind of sleepless nights and raw emotion since Dad died suddenly, after being found collapsed at home on Sunday evening. I used to be scared, indignant, and utterly confused. As I struggled to get Rose into her pyjamas, she asked, “Are you sad due to Grampa?”
“Yes, are you?” I replied.
She nodded and said, “Yes, but he’s in heaven, and Jesus is taking care of him and singing songs to him, which makes Grampa feel comfortable.”
Children feel pain, too, but they’ve a remarkable way of speaking the reality simply and profoundly. In that moment, Rose was ministering to me — her dad, the minister. It is usually in this manner that the valuable legacy of religion is carried on: through families, from parent to child, after which the kid ministering back to the parents, just as I needed to minister to Dad as I said goodbye to him last week in hospital.
The legacy of religion and love is much more remarkable in my case, since it needed to leap over the partitions of biology. I used to be Dad’s foster-son, having left a house crammed with violence, chaos, and brokenness (in every sense) on the age of just 15. When I used to be on the verge of taking my probabilities on the streets of Southampton, Dad gave me a room for a couple of nights. It turned out to be quite a bit longer. Together, we built a house crammed with laughter, light, and love.
MY JOURNEY to meeting my dad, Gary, and becoming his foster-son began with a plate of biscuits: never underestimate the evangelistic reach of an excellent custard cream. As kids, my sisters and I might wander around our council estate early on a Sunday morning, searching for something to do, and St Alban’s was the one place open. We soon discovered that, if we mostly sat quietly for 40 minutes and watched an odd act of worship happen (only a middle-of-the-road service of holy communion, it turned out), we might get free squash and biscuits in the children’ corner at the top.
Over the following couple of years, I used to be invited to function an altar boy, and was paid 50p to sing within the choir, and in a short time the church became one in every of the few secure places in my life — a life through which I used to be bringing up two baby half-siblings, barely going to high school, running a house, shoplifting, and committing fraud frequently. Even once we moved to a latest council estate, on Sundays I might creep out of the home within the early hours and walk the three miles back to this church.
One morning, on the age of 15, I used to be sent out to gather the family advantages (per week before we were allowed to) and decided never to go home, preferring to spend my nights on a friend’s floor. Every week later, Social Services tried to seek out a spot for me to remain, and on the very bottom of the list of potential guardians was the church.
A phone call was made, the church did what it is named to do, and the consequence was that I spent my last 12 months of secondary school living with Gary (the Vicar), and with the curate’s family, alternating one week at a time between them, eating all their food, having plenty of chats, going off on summer clubs, putting on weight, and realising that life may very well be much larger and more exciting than I had ever imagined: I started to dream again.
Two years later, a detailed and natural bond having formed between Gary and myself, I modified my surname to Philbrick. My identity was now firmly as a son of Gary, a part of the Philbrick family. Gary became Dad.
DAD radiated the sunshine of Christ: he was gentle, humble, and generous to all. Everyone who met him would say he was genuinely one in every of life’s loveliest people. He gave of himself to others, and, no matter what he was in the course of doing, he all the time made you are feeling as if in that moment you were the just one who mattered, whether you were a pilgrim requesting a blessing at the top of your journey to Winchester Cathedral, or someone living on the road.
Whoever it was, he would chat with them, make them feel seen, see the very best in them, and show them God’s interest in them. He built community wherever he went, welcoming relationships gently, just as God does with us.
In the identical way, although he never forced his faith on me, in his vocation I saw what the gift of the priesthood may very well be when it comes from a spot of humility, gentleness, and kindness.
ORDAINED deacon in 1986, Gary served all his ministry within the diocese of Winchester, first at Maybush, Fawley, and Swaythling, before becoming Area Dean of Southampton in 2007, and an Hon. Canon of Winchester Cathedral, in 2009. In 2013, he was made Rector of the seven Avon Valley Churches, and, in 2022, he was appointed Assistant Archdeacon in Winchester diocese and Chaplain of Winchester Cathedral — two posts that brought him much joy.
Eventually, following in my father’s footsteps, in 2019, I used to be ordained, and am now Vicar of St Paul’s, Weston-super-Mare. This was the culmination of an extended journey: a legacy passed from father to son which showed me something of how our heavenly Father loves us. Now, my ultimate hope is in something larger than Dad: within the Lord Jesus Christ. Dad’s legacy to me, and to all of us who knew him — and now mourn him — is the inspiration to hold that light of Christ on into the world. That’s what he would have wanted, since the gospel goes in every single place.
These are tough days, but God remains to be good. Now, I’m to take courage due to my faith. I’m not to fear, but to trust, just as Dad — and, now, my daughter — have shown me.
Rest in peace, Dad, and rise in glory.
