A LIFE WELL LIVED
Cindy and I and our kids have been reflecting recently on the impact of a dear and cherished friend upon our lives—her name is Pat. She went to be with Jesus several weeks ago now, and while it’s been quite a while since we’ve been able to be with her, we somehow miss her terribly these days! While we’re saddened by her death, our spirits are brightened by the reality that she’s in a much better place now and that someday we’ll share laughter with her once again.
Bill and Pat welcomed our family into their home and into their hearts as family. We laughed together a lot—and shared tears too. They somehow broke past the barrier of seeing us merely as their “pastor and wife” and chose to embrace us as “Tim and Cindy”—loving us and caring for us as friends. They warmed our hearts and encouraged us. Sometimes I think Pat carried the weight of our burdens heavier than we did—for Pat was one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever known!
Their home was a place of love. Coming out of rather dysfunctional families, Bill and Pat were clearly deeply committed to their family and to making their home different than what they’d known growing up—and it was! But they also knew how to enfold others into the warmth of their home.
During our eleven years serving the wonderful people of the Bedford Church, we spent nearly every Christmas Eve at Bill and Pat’s home—along with several other families. It was a cherished tradition for every member of our family. Pat just knew how to make people feel comfortable in her home—and I can still see her face beaming with joy just in seeing that others were so much enjoying being together. The party wouldn’t begin until after we’d had one or two Christmas Eve services—and by the time we’d leave their home it would be late on Christmas Eve—but it was for all those years one of our favorite and most cherished traditions, evenings we never wanted to have end—a tradition that we sorely missed in the years after we left Bedford.
I particularly remember the way Pat’s compassion compelled her to provide love and care for some of the elderly people of the church—particularly those who had no one else who could offer such care for them. I wish I had a dollar for every time Pat transported someone to a doctor’s office! Over the ten or eleven years that the need existed, she and Bill provided transportation hundreds of times (maybe thousands!) for Hazel Congalton to make her daily trek to the nursing home to see her husband John. When Roselyn Sherman needed 24-hour care late in her life, it was Pat who took Roselyn into her home and cared for her as a loving daughter would treat her mother. Pat did the same with Patty Wise—and those who knew the three ladies I just mentioned would kindly but honestly admit that each one could be particularly challenging in her own way! Who else but Pat would do such a thing for others?! And even before Pat took a couple of them into her home, when there were physical crises that prompted a late night trip to the ER and I’d go to the hospital first thing in the morning to check on them, invariably Pat would be sitting in a chair next to the bed, not wanting them to wake up and think they were alone. She’d do this without complaint, even though she was often dealing with her own physical pain. Her deep sense of compassion for others was at one time her greatest personal strength and that which brought more pain into her life—because she cared so deeply and so much wanted others to feel loved.
Pat had a thing for angels. She and I had some personal fun with a beautiful gold cherub that sat in her home early in our years at Bedford. I teased her about having a naked angel in her house, so before we left that time, I gave it some discreet covering (with toilet paper, to be specific!). On some occasion thereafter, I received as an “anonymous” gift the gold cherub in another state of creative dress. It began to make its rounds—and was eventually returned to our family upon our farewell at Bedford. It sits in our dining room today (fully unclothed!) and is a constant reminder to Cindy and me of one with whom we shared such wonderful love and delightful laughter!
Pat was a crafty sort of person—in that she enjoyed making things with her hands! And it seemed to be an annual tradition for her to decorate her Christmas tree with angels she had made. And every year she made a different kind of angel and asked every person—young and old—who came to their home Christmas Eve to take one of her newly made angels home with them. So it would be no surprise to you that our Christmas tree every year has lots of angels on it to remind us of one who was such an angel to us in so many ways.
It’s no secret that Pat struggled in recent years in ways that baffled those of us who knew her best. When I last saw her four years ago, it broke my heart that the sparkle was no longer in her eyes. I knew that something we could not explain had stolen the Pat we knew and loved. But I have confidence that the sparkle is back in her eyes today—that she is healthy and whole! And I somehow see her waiting near the gates of heaven to give us each a warm embrace and a glass of lemonade when we finally make our way there too. It’ll be good to see you, again, Pat!
May the Lord inspire us to love others as Pat did. May we be a blessing to others as she so often was to our family! May we see the hurting and the lonely as she did, and find ways to address their needs. May we learn to give of ourselves—even inconveniencing ourselves!—in order to respond to the needs of people around us. Somehow, it seems to me that this is exactly what Jesus would do…
On the journey with you,
Pastor Tim
