Senior Phillip Vails never imagined that his life would be flipped upsidedown the day after he finished seventh grade.
That’s the day his mother was murdered, and his home as he knew it was no more.
Born Phillip Calvin Vails in Hutzel Hospital in Detroit, this fun loving boy has led quite an unusual life.
Vails lived in Detroit until the end of his seventh grade year. “Living at home, it was just me and mom,” Vails said. He never knew his father. “Do you know who my daddy is?” he adds humorously.
While in elementary school, “I took up the violin,” however he had to stop because he never could afford his own.
Vails started singing in middle school, a skill that took much dedication, but was more cost efficient.
“I went to University Public School (in Detroit), also referred to as UPS – go figure. During this time, I moved three or four times” as his mother tried to save money and look for a good job. Her last job was at Wayne State University as a secretary. She went to work one day and never came home.
Vails was 12 when it happened. It was the first day of summer vacation. “Mom was shot and died instantly. She was all I had. To this day, they still don’t know who did it. I guess it was just another one of those random Detroit homicides. I’ve accepted it, but it’s like self-denial. I still remember being mad at the world.”
As expected, Vails’ life was in shambles. “I have a bunch of family, but I didn’t know where I was going to stay.”
THE MEETING
Vails’ family had a meeting to figure out where he would reside after the sudden death of his mother.
“My aunt, mother of former Southfield High School student Andrea Humanic, just got married, and they weren’t really in the position to take in a hungry black man,” Vails says sarcastically.
“My aunt Olivia wanted to take me in, however it wasn’t the right household.
“My cousin Tommy has a wife and kid. That wasn’t going to work too well, either.
“My cousin Terrence Vails and wife Cindy Cooper, who both attended Southfield High School, didn’t have a child, but they didn’t have nearly enough room.”
While the family debated where Vails would reside, he stayed with his great-grand mother, who passed away one year after his mother.
THE DECISION
Cousin Cindy’s parents, who are Paul and Linda Cooper of Southfield, were planning on retiring, however due to the situation, they decided to take on one more job. They took Vails into their home out of the kindness of their hearts and signed for guardianship, not adoption.
The catch was this: Vails is an African American male who grew up in Detroit and the Coopers are a Caucasian older couple who raised two, now grown daughters.
HANGIN’ WITH MR. COOPER
“By eighth grade, my whole, whole life got flipped upsidedown,” Vails recalls. He had only been to Southfield one or two times and had only previously met the Coopers on three or four occasions.
“Living with the Coopers is not an ordinary experience. The Coopers are the crème de la crème of Southfield,” Vails says. Paul Cooper is the president of Southfield’s Board of Education, and Linda Cooper is the president of the school district’s Secretary Union.
“You are an automatic representation of your parents,” Vails explains. His life with the Coopers became a “business partnership” because “we both came into it as a part of a company, but my part was about to go bankrupt.”
“They were like this other Fortune 500 company that saw potential in me,” he says. At that point, “all could go up, or all could go down.”
Fortunately for Vails, the partnership worked. “The hardest thing for me was being 12 years old and black with 50-year-old white parents,” Vails says.
But in contrast, Paul Cooper says that the hardest part was “raising a male child” after raising two daughters.
For the Coopers, it had been “10 years since we had been out of the teenage scene,” says Paul Cooper. He adds, “Boys are so much easier than girls.”
Cooper says that he remembers “the perplexing looks on faces when we would go to parent- teacher conferences, introduce ourselves to the teachers as his parents and watch them scratch their heads and say ‘gosh.’ ”
Paul Cooper says that the decision to take in Vails was “a no-brainer for us. We knew that we had to step in and help.”
Vails is now 18 and the Coopers, after six years of raising him, are no longer his guardians. Vails says that all legal obligations are expired but the emotional ones will never expire.
Senior Frank Tramble, Vails’ best friend since middle school, says that depite all that Vails has been through, “he is the most optimistic person that you will ever meet. He has never used his mother’s death as an excuse for anything.”
Paul Cooper attributes at least part of Vails’ upbeat attitude to Vails’ continued involvement with his church family over the years. “Phillip maybe misses three or four Sundays a year.”
Vails says thoughtfully,“It’s just weird when you think what would’ve happened” if his mother were still around. But, “I figured out that God had a plan. There was a reason for it all.”
THE AFTERMATH
Vails says most people believe that they need both a mother and a father to be well-adjusted. “Well no, you don’t. My mom raised me herself. She played football with me. I am the way that I am now because I only had mom.”
Vails admits that it’s going to be harder for him “to figure out how to be a father” because he never had one as a small child.
The lack of a father figure for most of his life hasn’t kept Vails down so far, says Drama teacher Brenda Perryman. “I’ve had a lot of students who have been through a lot of things, but Phillip seems to be even more extraordinary than the others,” she says. “He is just a half glass full type of guy. Sometimes I feel that he is in danger of being an over-achiever. There is a saying that goes, ‘Jack of all trades, master of none.’ Well, Phillip wants to be a master at everything. He works so hard.”
THE FUTURE
Vails describes himself as self-motivated. “My ultimate goal in life is to work in the music industry as a hip hop artist quadruple threat.”
He seriously considered becoming a preacher but changed his mind because he yearns to produce music, write , manage and rap. Yes, rap. The Southfield choir boy says that when it comes to rapping, “My flows come from me. It’s all real.”
In order for his ultimate goal to come true, he says he needs to major in business with minors in marketing and advertising. He says he chose business because he wants to sign his own contracts instead of having anyone do it for him.
“My mom and other people always told me that big things were going to come out of me.” Remembering those words “ is one of the best ways for me to go along with my life.” He says he believes he is destined to impact other people in positive ways.
Vails says all he needs is “one toe in the door” in the music industry and then he will be able to touch people through his passion and love for music.
Vails sums up his outlook on life and says, “I feel that I have to be positive because there are plenty of people who can be negative for me. Being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing, makes it so God doesn’t have a choice but to give me a blessing.”
Paul Cooper says, “Phillip was the blessing” God gave to them.