After an overdose death, a friendship is forged in shared grief and a mutual search for meaning

Kate Kimbel doesn’t like spring. For her, a sense of foreboding accompanies the first blossoms. When winter ends, it means April 24 is near. The day her son died.

Inside her Narberth home, she hears the chatter of warm weather. A school bus passes by with its windows down. The blare of excited children overtakes the neighborhood.

Outside, the world is filled with people whose lives carry on unchanged. In the days leading up to the 24th, the distance between them and her is most pronounced.

It’s been six years of this. Six years of missing him, of trying to balance this rise and fall of emotion that’s become part of her life.

Mike Swift nods.

Kimbel has known Swift, a childhood friend of her son, for more than a decade. Seated at her dining room table, he listens intently. Swift also has a date that changed his life.

June 11, 2016. He was 21 years old.

His parents found him in their basement. There were empty packets of heroin scattered across the floor. It looked like he was praying, the way his body was stuck.

Swift spent 30 days in a coma. The odds of surviving were terrible. He suffered a stroke, kidney failure, and had his right leg amputated below the knee.

Now, he’s here talking about the Wu-Tang Clan. It’s one of many groups Kimbel’s son introduced to him. He fondly recalls his friend’s influence, the Jackass videos, the 90s rap, Fallen brand clothing.

When he sees them today, they bring up memories. There’s a weight they carry. A seriousness is attached to what were once just cool things, now sacred. “Phil loved to put people on,” Swift said. “That was his thing.”

Kimbel laughs. A neighbor saw her son write “FALLEN” across a dirty car windshield one year and panicked, thinking it the expression of a sick and dangerous mind.

Kimbel explained it’s just a logo. When she talks about her son, she uses either “Philip” or “Philly,” names she gave him that, for years, were cried out when he was needed for something.

Swift nicknamed him “Philistine.” During the entirety of their friendship, from middle school to their 20s, Phil was Philistine.

Although they knew different sides of him, their mutual love of Phil brought them together.

At the first memorial, Kimbel asked if Swift felt survivor’s guilt. Like Phil, he struggled with drugs and had overdosed, but Swift lived. He wanted to know if she resented him for that. “I was so honored that you felt comfortable to ask,” Kimbel tells Swift.

Their questions broached a difficult topic, but also proved something. They cared about how each other felt.

At her son’s memorial, Kimbel considered Swift’s feelings, as he did hers. That conversation began an honest and supportive friendship that’s lasted years.

Swift knows this time of year is difficult for Kimbel. He makes an effort to be present, whether it’s on the phone or in person. Swift has always shown up for the people he cares about. Growing up, his house was a hangout spot for his friends, a sanctuary where they could be teenagers and not be bothered.

Sometimes it was a shelter. If someone was having trouble at home, Swift’s was a safe place to stay. The love Swift had continues. He’s reached out to the families of his dead friends, offering any support he can give.

At 29 years old, there are many. Sometimes the families are receptive, sometimes it can get volatile. “I actually got punched in the face one time,” he remembers. Swift gets the anger. He understands there’s little he can do to assuage their grief. But if they’d like, he’ll be there.

Although his friendship with Kimbel is different. He genuinely loves her. As she does him. “I don’t look at Mike as my son’s friend, it’s like a maternal kind of feeling,” Kimbel reflects. “You are a mom I can hit up about anything,” Swift tells her. Which he does.

They talk about everything, from sadness to the last concert Kimbel attended. On one recent night, she saw The Soul Rebels, a band Swift and Kimbel have seen together. “I wasn’t sure if you could dance,” she tells him. He smiles. He can dance.

Swift updates Kimbel on his life. Before coming to her house, his leg was giving him trouble. The new job he has is commission-based and has him walking for miles each day. He hasn’t used since 2019, and recently broke the record for the highest first paycheck in company history.

Soon, Kimbel is driving to prison. She’s found a calling in restorative justice. “I don’t want to just work with families,” she said. “I’d like to be involved in facilitating connection between both” offenders and victims.

During a hearing for the man convicted in her son’s death, Kimbel had an epiphany. As she delivered her victim impact statement, she was face-to-face with the person who sold Philip fentanyl.

Looking into his eyes, there wasn’t any hatred or rage within her. She’s thankful for that. “I’m grateful I’ve never felt any anger,” she said. “It stunts your growth.”

That moment on the stand was revelatory; of all the feelings surrounding her son’s death, hate wasn’t one of them. “This isn’t a way of looking at things or a philosophy that’s better for mankind, it’s just who I am.” Kimbel eventually reached out to him in prison. They now communicate through email, and she hopes to one day sit down together. She wants to help others find forgiveness and heal the way she’s been able.

“From that hearing on, I’ve found meaning,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine, but this loss has really expanded my life.” Kimbel’s new path has introduced her to a lot of new faces, some of whom were met by coincidence. She credits the serendipity to her son’s spirit. “It’s as if he’s guiding me, like a beacon.”

“It’s as if he’s guiding me, like a beacon.”

The night ends in Phil’s room. Kimbel pulls out a drawer filled with his shirts. “If you guys see any you like, you can have them,” she offers. Quietly, they sift through her son’s clothes.

There is a routine to daily life we expect. A harmony we achieve with the world around us that is anticipated and secure. Tragedy takes away that confidence. It confronts us with an existence that is unpredictable and cruel.

When people face devastation like this, we witness the indelible strength of the human spirit. We see the outpouring of compassion from those around them. We see people build community in the wake of disaster. Swift and Kimbel’s friendship is an example of that community. A reminder that empathy is an essential human quality.

To use our suffering to help others — as Swift and Kimbel are — is a way of persevering. That we can help one another empowers us against a cold and indifferent reality.

Life is brutal.

And we have each other.

Before work every morning, Swift puts on his prosthesis. He passes by a collection of Phil’s stuff, what he lovingly calls his “Phrine.”

When Kimbel makes coffee in her kitchen, she is surrounded by pictures of Philip and her other two children, Sander and Liana. Liana has a tattoo in memory of her brother. Kimbel has one, as well. They say, “Philly.”

Theo Fountain, who lived on the streets of Kensington from 2019 to 2021, is approaching three years of sobriety, lives in Roxborough, and is working on a collection of essays about his experiences as an unhoused person.