Saturday, August 25, 2012

Missing Pat

I don't know what happened. Where I'm writing, I have appropriate paragraphs and indentation ... something else I have to learn. Enjoy anyway. What a wonderful few days I had in Tucson with Bernd, excluding the canceled flights and the baggage that was lost at the end, but that was fine. I really felt I needed to be a part of the celebration for Pat. I can’t believe she is not with us and that she functioned so well up to the end. Pat was quite a lady and I’m so glad she was my sister-in-law. She was a wonderful wife for Bernd and at the celebration I kept hearing what a wonderful husband Bernd was to Pat, which I knew, but perhaps I’m a little biased. I also had the good fortune of reading all the notes sent to Pat and Bernd so I got to appreciate how much she was loved, not just by us. She touched a lot of lives. Most people remember her fondly for her cookie baking and giving, which I enjoyed, too ... but not all parts of the cookie baking. Well, the baking was fine, but the dough preparations! That’s another story. Neat? Clean? You betcha! Susan sent a note that said Pat left us too soon because she still didn’t know what portion of the raw cookie dough she had to eat before the baking. Pat loved the raw dough and that horrified me, because there were raw eggs in the dough ... and the unbaked flour is not easy to digest either. (I do have to admit that I, too, like the dough and sometimes eat a very little ... even with the raw egg in it and think of Pat as I’m licking the beaters or spoon.) So, Susan, as a former home economics teacher I’ll tell you that the proper amount of dough to eat is NONE!! But some of my fondest memories is Pat teasing me as she would take a spoonful of dough and lovingly relish each mouthful while making sure I was watching ... and we’d laugh! Our trip to Germany would not have gone as nicely without Pat as she made all the arrangements and was so good at it! We stayed at great B&B’s and at reasonable prices. How she found the hotel in Hamburg, I’ll never know as we drove by it several times before Chuck saw the doorway. Pat was the best organizer and researcher. We had fun. Our trip was just before the last presidential election and the first question she asked us is, “Who would you like as president?” We gave the right answer because Pat told us that we would get along just fine!
This is one of the few pictures I have of Pat. Pat was an avid photographer, but rarely in the pictures. That’s another thing I liked about our trip together because I rarely have pictures of Chuck so we exchanged our photos and each have a nice variety with each photographer in it. This picture was taken at the farmer’s market in Göttingen, Germany.
This was taken in Bremen, Germany where we each grabbed the Bremen Town Musicians legs for luck. It was a wonderful trip. (... and if you want a detailed blow by blow of that adventure, start from my first blog entry.) Steve Gottlieb used Pat’s camera at the celebration and took lots of pictures, which Bernd asked me to download onto their computer. They are great!! That’s when I noticed how many pictures she took on their trip before she went to the hospital. I only have 1 picture as I still have to learn how to work the computer and how to transfer from one computer to another. There wasn’t time to make CD’s on this trip. I’ll get it, but with practice. Pat spent hours “fixing” an old photo we had with a sun streak across Uncle Fred’s face. She finally took his face off another photo, copied it and pasted it on the damaged one. She kept photo records of all occasions and loved sharing them. We were lucky recipients. That’s another gift Pat had. She was very giving of her time and talents. One of the best compliments were the clients that came to Pat’s celebration from the Aphasia place where Pat volunteered by teaching computer skills. Pat would have loved seeing us all having such a good time telling “Pat” stories.