Uncle Phillip - A Memoir

Well guys, I’m jumping right in with this one. Let’s just say it’s a darn good thing I’m not having to say this aloud or record it because I’m literally racked with emotion.

This week I wanted to dedicate my blog post in loving memory of my uncle, Phillip Travis Lacson. Uncle Phillip now lives in heaven with Jesus and I miss him terribly. So much sometimes it physically hurts. Like right now when the tears are rolling out of my eyes like waves in the ocean. With his birthday being on Friday, August 14th, I thought it would be a good time to tell you all about one of the greatest men that ever was.

On 8/14 my uncle would have been 51 years old. In this blog I’ll pretty much only refer to him as Uncle Phillip because that’s all I ever called him. Never Phillip or Phil… just Uncle Phillip. He’s been gone for 3 years now and I miss him now more than ever. He was diagnosed with cancer in May of 2016 and given approximately 2 years to live with treatment. He took treatment after treatment and made it about 1 1/2 years. I’m not trying to bring you down… just thought you may want to know why he isn’t here anymore. It was a sad decline that I do not care to relive.

My Uncle Phillip was the coolest, the funniest, the chillest, dopest, most “down” dude you would ever meet. He brought light into every part of my life. For most of my life he was not married and he didn’t yet have any children. Basically, my sisters and I were “his girls”. He treated us like his own and when we were with him, everything was more fun. Time with him was always the most special.

Uncle Phillip was a man of MANY talents. He was an amazing artist. He instilled in us girls a love for art, for coloring and doodling, drawing and painting, and even using charcoal. The back bedroom in his house was filled to the brim with art supplies. When we would visit, we would beg him to take them down and let us use them to our hearts content. We would draw and color all sorts of things. From cartoons to landscapes, you name it. I still have a picture in my hope chest that he painted for me with some of my .99 cent watercolors… it’s dated 1997. It’s a sunset over the ocean. He did that picture on some craft paper I had lying around in my room and finished it in all of 10 minutes. It amazed me then, and it amazes me now.

Uncle Phillip was also a semi-pro pool player. He played at all the local pool halls and bars around Charleston, SC where he lived, and was frequently entered into tournaments. I know he got to go to Las Vegas twice in tournaments and each time brought us girls back a surprise. He had trophies lined up on a shelf and something that held a pool ball that he had cracked in half. I think it was a number 9, but I can’t remember now. He was also an exceptionally good volleyball player. He used to play when he was younger and would enter tournaments for that also. When I was little he would let me wear one of his “doo-rags” and tie it on my head. Then we would go volley around outside in the yard. He would show off some of his foot skills too - he had played soccer and could hackey-sack with the best of them. He never ceased to impress me.

Some of my favorite memories were spent with Uncle Phillip at Folly Beach where we would hunt sharks’ teeth and seashells. Uncle Phillip had thousands of teeth and always said that one day he wanted to fill up the bottom of an aquarium with sharks’ teeth instead of those dumb neon rocks. One particular memory sticks out in my mind was a week in the summer where my sister Caitlyn and I got to stay with our Yaya and Papa Vince and Uncle Phillip. Miranda was too little to come, and we didn’t know Abby yet, but it was one of the best weeks of my life. Caitlyn got a shell stuck in her foot and you would have thought that someone had cut off her big toe. In cool Uncle Phillip fashion, he took one look at her foot and then looked at the ocean and said, “Look at that!”, and then brushed it away. Caitlyn was none the wiser. That week at the beach, Uncle Phillip gave me a huge sharks tooth that he had found under a bridge in a river somewhere. I still have it today. I also have it tattooed on my leg in memory of him. It will always be one of my most prized possessions.

His taste in music absolutely boosted my love for rock n roll. Whether it was classic rock or some grunge, it didn’t matter, we were always down to rock our air guitar solos. Some songs that always make me think of him are “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen (he would try to make his teeth buck out like Freddie Mercury); “Peace of Mind” by Boston, “Sweet Child O’ Mind” by Guns N’ Roses, “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel, “She Talks to Angels” by the Black Crowes, anything from Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Nirvana, or even a little Alanis Morrissette. We would ride around in his little two-seater Toyota truck, jamming out, drinking out Mountain Dews (AKA our crack of choice) and I would try and smell the smoke from his Marlboro Lights. Those were some of the best days ever.

Uncle Phillip always had my back. In the 5th grade I had a bully. Harry Potter had just really hit the schools big time and we read the first books as a class. This boy would call me Hagrid. Yes, Hagrid the giant. I had a crush on this boy until he started the name calling. I told Uncle Phillip and he was like, “Well what should we nickname him?”. I was like “huh??”. He was a cool kid, played mighty mite football, and was the captain of our safety patrol team. Uncle Phillip said “He sounds like a meathead to me”. So, from then on, the bully was referred to as “Meathead”. He wasn’t cruel but he sure did make 10-year-old Hagrid feel better.

Christmas time was always a blast with Uncle Phillip. The toys were not extravagant, but you could’ve given us a ball and a string and we would have had the best time. One of our favorite toys were “Sock ‘Em Boppers” - we wrestled with those until they either popped or Caitlyn cried too much, not sure what came first. We would watch all of the claymation movies and he would give us his best impressions. To this day my favorites are still Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - “I’m a Charlie In the Box, nobody wants a Charlie in the Box!” or Hermey the Dentist. Apart from Christmas, he would do the Oompa Loompa songs from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and he could cackle just like the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. He would have the entire room in stitches. One time he threw my blanket over top of his back and pretended to be The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It scared the ever-loving dog sh** out of me, but it was hysterical. Did I mention that hide and seek was like an Olympic sport for him? He would hide us on top the fridge, in a laundry hamper, he was THE GOAT.

I feel like I could go on for ages and I truly hope this didn’t bore. The point is to show you the power you have in influencing another’s life. He made mine a million times better. By being present, by caring, by being a comedian and being genuinely interested in our lives. He was there and he was so, so good to us. More than that, he was good to everyone that met him. You didn’t have to be special to be in his good graces. My heart will forever ache until I get to see him again one day. I was fortunate enough to witness him being baptized in a bathtub once his cancer progressed. So, this week I will celebrate Phillip Travis Lacson - Worlds Greatest Uncle. I will jam out with my windows down belting some rock n roll song; I will draw something that makes someone smile; best of all I’ll remember the absolute wonderful man he was. My Uncle Phillip.

You are forever in my heart and part of my very soul.

- Alexis (favorite niece, in case there was a question)