I don't know where to begin to try to sum up what Pat has meant to us and to me personally all these years. I also have the rolling pencil holder, but other things as well, including an extremely clever bird house made to look like a caboose which my grandson loves. She was gifted in so many areas, a person of great depths, who loved her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren dearly and spoke of them often, and with whom we've shared so many adventures.
Pat's influence is everywhere. First on SeniorNet and then on SeniorLearn, it's her animations which now grace the Latin classes, her cleverness in making blinking drills and staggering Caesars to run across the page, Felix Dies on the Latin birthday cakes, and rolling snowmen for the website headings. She could make any animation do what you wanted. Her dedication in getting it right was legendary. We'll always use them, and people will always say where on earth did you get that? Pat.
The trips, the gatherings, the fun! I had a wonderful photo of her at The Isle of Palms which she hated. I always said if anything happened to her we'd use that, she always said don't you dare. Funny how it has disappeared. The photo above and those from the DC trip, the beach trip, the Wilmington trip, the various Books gatherings, and the trip to Europe, show how many experiences we all shared. Who could forget Pat in Venice? Or having to go..was it in Rome...to the Hardrock Cafe because of a grandchild? Or whacking a pretty good sized man in the shins in that somewhat deserted historic square in Paris with that lethal CANE! I was terrified, I didn't know why she did that, and was sure we were in for it but he ran. He had tried to steal her purse but he went home wiser that day.
That CANE! In addition to the stories here, there are so many more. Once in Rome we wanted to sit in a grotto like restaurant basement with frescoes and had started down, and the owner, an elderly man, was apparently trying to close that section. That's what I got out of his running up and expostulating and waving his hands in angry Italian. Pat, however and the famous CANE spoke all languages: grasping it firmly she raised it up and shook it and apparently they spoke the same language as we were treated like queens from that moment on, and escorted in like royalty. hahahaa I have often thought of trying that, but somehow I think it would not go as well.
Memories, memories. They keep flooding back. How lucky we were to know Pat, all of us here from across the country and the world. I last heard from Pat in February on my birthday. She never forgot.
The trip to Altona with Andrea, what a wonderful area of the country, what wonderful people, I was so taken with it and Sara and Patrick whom I had heard so much about, as well as the doings of all her children and grandchildren. I knew them all vicariously. How she looked forward to that trip to Colorado for the family reunion. She came here, too, to our home, to South Carolina, with Charlie who carefully chose a rock for his collection as he was making a wall of these rocks from his travels. I feel very fortunate to have known her.
I would like to extend my heartfelt sympathy to her family which she loved so well, and my gratitude for having had her in our lives. We are all much richer for it.
