Patricia

Julio remembers meeting Pat 13 years ago. His brother was a mechanic, and Pat brought her car to him to be fixed. Lucky for Julio, his brother who liked to flirt with the ladies, wasn’t in, so Julio and this beautiful woman, Pat, had time to visit. In the years that followed, they would debate: was she wearing wedge shoes or boots that day? He would ask: “Who was the one looking at your legs?!” Julio took Pat for a ride on his motorcycle, and from then on, they were inseparable.

At one time Pat had her own snow cone stand, but when she and Julio married, she was able to stay at home with her daughter Kylee. Later on, their daughter Rose joined their family. Pat was the mom everyone wanted to have. She was easy to talk to, comforting and understanding. Her nieces and nephew would come to her with their problems knowing they would find a good listener with a sympathetic ear and good advice. Pat could always get the girls to do the things that they didn’t want to do like clean their rooms. She just knew how to connect with them and to make things fun. She was a natural mother.

Pat loved doing arts and crafts with her girls, and she always had paints, markers, and crayons around to work with. She loved to draw, and when Rose needed shirts or costumes for school, Pat would make them rather than buy them at the store. She also loved to be outside and took care of the family yardwork. Pat’s favorite place was on the back of Julio’s bike, and they loved to just ride, nowhere special, just the open road and the two of them together. Julio remembers fondly, “I think she was sent to me. I was coming out of a bad relationship, and she was so kind and loving.”

Pat and Julio didn’t go in much for PDA, but they did enjoy holding hands. When she was very sick and needed his help for all of her daily living activities, she called to him with urgency one day to ask for help with the bathroom. He hurried in, lifting her in his arms to move her. Once she was upright in his arms, she told him that she didn’t really need the bathroom. Instead, she just wanted to hug him and to tell him thank you.

Julio remembers Pat as a person that others just wanted to be around because of the kindness and love that emanated from her. When she made a mistake, she would learn from it and not repeat the same mistake again. He only remembers three arguments in their thirteen years together. She had the gift for working things out for the good of all.

Project 4031 happily assisted the family with a summer utility bill and later helped with Christmas festivities, including gift cards for presents and food for a Christmas meal. This sweet family was also a favorite stop for the weekly Wings volunteers who always enjoyed a quick visit with Julio about his Pat.