SAINT PAT

I DON'T KNOW IF MY FRIEND PAT WAS IRISH, BUT HER NAME IS PATRICIA and I think about her often.  She went by Pat for short.  One of my favorite people on all the planet.  When I lived in the same town as her, we'd visit in person for hours on end.  

After I relocated to Oklahoma and then Kansas again, we'd talk on the telephone.  When I was in her neighborhood, I'd stop by and say HEY.  I deeply loved her.  Such a special and dear friend to me.  

LOVE LIFTED ME was the song that I heard being sung in the Nursing Home Chapel where other Saints were singing in the afternoon on the day that was my last time to see her in person.  She'd been placed in a Nursing Home and she did not know who I was.  She remembered my husband, but not me.  It was a tough thing for me so when the people were singing LOVE LIFTED ME, I stood outside the chapel door and cried a few tears.  She looked the best I'd ever seen her as the home she was in saw to it that her hair was styled and her fingernails polished.  She was clean and sitting in a wheel chair.  Her room was small, but clean and orderly.

When I would visit her while she was living in her own home, her house was a two story victorian that she had decorated early on.  It was such fun to visit her and see her lovely home.  She and her husband lived there long before I met her.  Her home was filled with finds she had come across for years.      

Our GIRL TALKS were priceless.  No amount of money would I have taken for not visiting her.  We visited about what was going on in our lives.  She'd share her past with me and how she was married before to missionaries son.  They had two sons together and would say that her sons were never a problem.  I don't know why she divorced.  She never disclosed this.  I didn't pry.  She'd freely talk about what she wanted.  Her prayers were solid gold rich with wisdom.

She told me about jobs she had in the past.  Once she was a secretary where Billy Graham's father-in-law had an office to where he'd visit her and wanted her to come to work for him.  She didn't.  She said she ran away instead.    

She shared about how she met her second husband Neal.  She was standing outside waiting for a bus.  She decided which way she'd go depending on the direction the bus was going to attend church.  This particular day, she went to a church where Neal was the director of music.  It was love at first sight for Neal.  They's go on a date and he'd ask her to marry him.  A short courtship.  Later she'd accept his proposal.

This wasn't the best thing to do because they hardly knew each other.  She'd learn after they married that Neal didn't pay his bills.  He had grocery bags full of unpaid bills.  She'd have to visit an attorney to seek counsel in which she was told the bills needed to be paid.  She'd find a way to pay the bills off which caused heartache and exhaustion.  At one point in her life she said she screamed at Neal to where she heard something pop in her body.  She'd break out in shingles later which nearly caused her to go blind in one eye.

They'd move from a very nice apartment into a run down country house that they agreed with the landlord to fix up for free rent.  They'd do this.  She shared with me things they did to cut cost to survive.  Determined to make it.

Years later she'd go to a county nurse to talk about what she was going through.  The nurse told her that there had been so many women sit in that exact chair crying about their situation which was the same.  She became an overcomer.   

She'd share with me her Christian walk and I loved hearing about her journey.    

When one becomes a born again Christian, one becomes a SAINT.  So I shall think of her as SAINT PAT.  Patty Cakes was such a dear friend to me.     

I met Pat when she was in her 70s.  Lord willing, I will live into my 70s.  I'm the older woman now.

She is one that I am so thankful for that I met and was blessed to get to know.  A GOD KIN.  True friends are treasures.

Off to shave my legs, take a shower and shampoo my hair.  Thankful I can still do this.

Blessings to you.

HOME LIFE is for me!

🏡d