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Phil Simmons, Community Care Advocate, Dies
Caregiving Circle Gave Writer a Life Beyond His Illness
 Listen to Richard Knox's report.
Phil Simmons, writer and college professor, died at his home on July 27.
Photo courtesy Derek Marshall
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Aug. 2, 2002 -- Phil Simmons died peacefully at his home in the New Hampshire woods --- as he planned it --- on Saturday evening, July 27. He was 45.
Simmons, a writer and college English professor, was featured last Feb. 18 on All Things Considered. NPR's Richard Knox and producer Peter Thomson spent a year with Phil, his wife Kathryn and their family to chronicle his long struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease --- and to report on how an extraordinarily dedicated group of friends and neighbors sustained Phil and his family.
The caregiving group made it possible for Simmons to stay at home despite increasing disability. More importantly, it enabled him to produce a remarkable outpouring of books, sermons, speeches, essays and a recently completed first novel. Last fall, Bantam published Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life. Simmons' meditations on coming to terms with mortality were not just about his illness but about the losses everyone must bear.
"It takes a village to care for me," Simmons said of his caregiver group, which called itself FOPAK, for Friends of Phil and Kathryn. He knew how lucky he was to have such friends. But he was firmly convinced that community support like his could flourish anywhere. "To see a group like this working as well as it does … I would hope would cause people to reflect on the possibilities that are there in their own communities, because it can be done. Community is possible. Relationship is possible. It's up to us to create it."
 Listen to the original Feb. 18 broadcast and learn more about Phil and his circle of caregivers.
Read Simmons' obituary in the Boston Globe.
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