Phil's Cancer Journal: Memorial June 2002

Memorial

Place: Scholastic Inc.

555/557 Broadway @ Prince Street

New York , NY

Date: Saturday, June 22, 2002

Time: 11am - 2 pm

All are welcome, but you must contact me to let me know that you are planning to attend (see below). Please bring a photo id.

June 12, 2002, New York

It is an awesome responsibility to update any part of Phil's website without him here to review the content, but it is especially difficult to update this section. Many people that Phil never met have been devoted readers of his cancer journal and he set an incredibly high standard of writing for it as he did with all of his projects.

Phil's cancer journal is beautiful writing and a tribute to his incredible spirit. That is why I hesitate to add to it, even to give the details of his memorial service. But I wanted to add a few thoughts especially for the people who never met Phil.

It is one thing to write movingly and inspiringly, but it is something much more to be able to live up to your words. In the last year of his life, Phil was tested to live up to the philosophy he had defined and written about in his four books and on his website. I, his mother and brothers and his close friends know that he met and exceeded that test, especially this past year. Phil truly lived by the philosophy he so eloquently wrote about. We were with him 24/7 as Phil would say, and he was never angry, resentful or bitter about what was happening to him. He never complained that it was unfair. He was deeply grateful for all the blessings in his life and he simply wanted the chance to keep living the life he had.

The first of several memorial services for Phil will be held at the offices of Scholastic in New York City on Saturday, June 22, 2002. The time will be announced later, but it most likely will be around noon. Please email me through the website or at PSUDO@AOL.COM to let me know if you are planning to attend. We need to have a list of people attending for the building securtity officers. A service will also be held later this summer in the Twin Cities and I will provide details as they become available. Phil's ashes will be buried in Maui, Hawaii sometime next spring.

The New York memorial service will be informal with family and friends sharing their memories of Phil. Our children will be there and all children are welcome. It goes without saying if you knew Phil that wearing a suit is definately not necessary unless that is what you feel comfortable wearing.

Several people have asked me about making donations to a memorial fund. We are setting up an education fund for our three children, Naomi (7), Keith(5) and Jonathan(3). I would also like to set up a Zen Guitar Foundation to help further Phil's vision for Zen Guitar and also to donate money to cancer research. The details will be made available soon.

More important than donations to a fund are the donations of your memories of Phil and how he affected your life. Our children are very young and it is important that they know their father. They have the incredible gift of Phil's writing, but I want them to also know the small moments of Phil's life. I am going to prepare a memory book for each of our children and for Phil's mother and bring them to the memorial service. Please bring contributions to be put in the memory books. It can be a wrtitten memory of a moment you shared with Phil, a photograph, a work of art, or whatever you feel moved to do. It would be helpful if you bring a copy for each book.

Phil, his mother, his brothers, Rich and Paul, and I were amazed at the outpouring of love and support for Phil over the past year, not just from people we knew, but from people we have never met. We thank you for the love, the thoughts, prayers, and kind gestures that have sustained us and more importantly sustained Phil through his illness.

With love, gratitude and aloha,

Tracy

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Memorial

Place: Scholastic Inc.

Date: Saturday, June 22, 2002

Time: 11am - 2 pm