For Pat Carriere

Suddenly, my good friend Pat was gone. On May 20th, she didn’t feel good and passed away enroute to the hospital. I don’t know the cause and it doesn’t really matter. I know she was very cautious about staying inside and being safe from Covid-19, but still I wonder...

Let me tell you about my friend Pat.

Pat was an authentic person with a huge heart and a longing to give that love to everyone she met. Pat chose to become a nurse and help people who were sick and suffering. In the second part of her career, Pat went to work for the National Archives as thir health unit nurse. Last year, she retired and went on the trip she had so looked forward to taking to cruse around South America. This she thought would be the first of many such trips with her group of friends that loved to travel together.

The long flight back to the US from Buenos Ares stressed her body and Pat developed blood clots in her lungs. She nearly died, but fought to hold onto life, working hard in rehab. to recover and resume her independent life in the condo she called home for 30 years, where she lived with her cat of 21 years. Over the years, Pat worked hard to overcome obesity, losing more than 100 pounds through sheer determination. Thankfully, being in better physical condition helped her survive this ordeal with the blood clots and before the Covid-19 pandemic hit in February, she was once again volunteering at the church thrift store and helping her nieces with babysitting and doing other things to help them deal with work and children. She loved being Aunt Pat and talked endlessly about her wonderful nieces and nephews and their young children.

Perhaps the thing about Pat that I’ll miss the most is she was my one connection with my mother who passed away in 2018. Pat and my mother were nurses together and also good friends. Pat was the only person left who had heard stories about me from my mother and could share those. Pat loved my mother and I relished hearing her version of events I’d only heard from Mom.

Pat was also the big sister of my school-age best friend, with whom I am estranged for many years. Thought Pat I kept current on events in the Carriere family with whom I’d grown-up.

Mostly, I loved Pat for her big heart. I never ever heard her say an bad thing about anyone. She was such a loving person who you could count on for a shoulder and the truth.

Pat never married and that was a subject about which I only know little. I am pertty sure she had someone who cared for her in her life, but from what she’d told me the last time we spoke — a month ago — he was working out of state and while they talked often, he wasn’t around. It makes me sad that Pat left this life with so many plans and hopes for the future. We never know when our time will come and we are taken to the next existence. But when a beloved person goes without warning so suddenly, we who are left behind are helpless and looking to rationalize this empty feeling.

Pat, I know you and your fatith was very strong. I believe you are soring in the bright light of our creator’s love, free of your eathly cares and woes. Fly high and be free as you’ve alway tried to be.

I’ll miss you!