in loving remembrance...

July 29, 2005…exactly one year ago from today and the memories are still as clear as the glass that shattered early that Friday morning. I can remember exactly where I was sitting when the phone rang. I can still hear my best friend sobbing on the other end of the line, choking on every word. I can still feel the shock, the disbelief. No tears were shed on the ride down to our old hometown, the numbness washing over me as I drove in silence and separation. I remember that night, sitting with my two best friends, the only missing link among us being the one that was lost in the darkness of that tragic morning.

Ordinarily, we would have all spent the night eating good food, drinking, and laughing until we collapsed. But that night was not ordinary by any means. It was a night that will live in each of our minds forever, regardless of time’s passing.

It was several years before when I was first introduced to Patrick. My best friend Dee, had discovered this amazing guy in her classes. He wore girl’s flipflops and knew everything there was to know about computers. His outstanding sense of humor and open heart had won her friendship; naturally, he became my friend “by proxy”. From that time on, he was always known to me as “Patty Disasta”.

Fast forward a couple of years… I met another friend “by proxy” though Dee. Shoo was Pat’s best friend since childhood, his college roommate, and he quickly became one of my best friends. In the following months, with Shoo living in Idaho, I began to spend more time with Pat. He was like a big brother, calling to check on me during the months of loneliness, inviting me to his famous “dinner parties”. When my computer was broken, he came to fix it. When his car broke down on the interstate, I went with him to retrieve it. And every month when Shoo flew in to visit, we would eat and drink and laugh until we collapsed.
I never knew Pat the way that Dee and Shoo did. He was their best friend, mine “by proxy”. There were so many things I never got to say to him, never got to experience with him, never got to share. There is too much that I did not know; too much I wish I had known. And yet this is what I do know. I know that Patrick affected the lives of so many people, mine included. His heart was huge and open, welcoming and inviting. His laughter was contagious, his cooking delicious, his passions untouchable. He was loyal and trustworthy, supportive and determined. Just the sound of his voice could make the day seem brighter. And even though I did not know Patrick the way my dear best friends did, even though the pain of his loss touches them so much deeper, this is what I do know: this world will never be quite as bright since that fateful day in July, a day when hearts were broken and the laughter died.

**May you rest in peace, our dear friend. You will never be forgotten and you will live on in our hearts forever. In loving remembrance of Patrick Watson…**