When I was around seven I was over at grandma's playing with Tanya outside. We were rough housing an playing around out front when I fell into the ditch, landing smack dab in the middle of a massive (from a seven year olds point of view) ant nest. As ant do when you disturb their nest, they attacked. I was screaming, Tanya was yelling, and the commotion alerted grandma. 

I was so scared trying to get the ants off me, the pain from the bites. I remember the panic creeping up my spine. Then grandma showed up, calm in every way. She ushered us up out of the ditch and turned the hose on us, like this was no big deal, nothing to get worked up about. Even with the pain coursing through my body I felt like If grandma wasn't worried then everything would be just fine. Other than many days of smelly itch cream, and a few scars from the nastier bites, it was.

I took a job in the fall of 2008 with the NM School for the Blind and was assigned the outreach support for Northern NM. I had never been to NM and needed to find a place to live. I happened to know two people from Taos who helped me contact prospective landlords. These two were Liz Cunningham and Skip Miller. They gave me Patricia's name. I called to ask Patricia about the possibility and the door to my NM experience opened. 

Patricia was so friendly and positive on the phone, She needed someone to be in her home while she went to Austin, TX to be near her daughter Sonja and her brother. She was sure this would work out wonderfully and it did. I was surprised that she took me and my husband in sight unseen. She wasn't home when I moved in, simply left the keys on the garbage can!

Patricia was open to the universe, free thinking, kind and generous. I loved the times she'd come back to visit her home. We got to know each other well during that school year. John and I loved Patricia and will always be grateful that she let us into her home and heart. She is greatly missed. We  will always remember her with great fondness. 

Jean MacConnachie and John Kearns

PO Box 1015, Joseph, OR 97846

I met Patricia when I was 11. I was becoming friends with Sonya in 7th grade. Every time I went to their house, there would also be Tanya, so I got to be friends with her too. Every time I went to their house, there would also be Denise with Tanya and Shondra and Sasha and the Kaufmans and the Sharfins and the Schreibers and Alexander Reidy. I got to make a lot of friends at Patricia’s house.  She was always hosting so many of us and feeding so many of us. It was fun to snack at her house, we got to eat Apple Jacks and watch TV on a school night. Shout-out to the cottage cheese and potato chips, Estelle! Her house had jigsaw puzzles on card tables, books, board games, a piano, nail polish, make-up, a great deck for laying-out in the summer and a trampoline. She made a space for feeling free and having fun. Patricia really seemed to enjoy kids and teenagers, she was delighted just to be around us. I remember her with a smile on her face as she cooked tacos in the deep fryer while we ran around her house. 

She was the support for our San Cristobal adventures. When we wanted to try out new walkie-talkies by splitting up and going to different spots, she sent us with snacks. When we dared each other to eat gross things like cat food with ketchup on it, she didn’t stop us. She said yes to us sleeping on the trampoline in the summer time. She said yes to a lot of sleeping outside.

When I met Tanya’s son Kobe for the first time, he was 2. Tanya, Patricia and Kobe came over to my parents’ house. Tanya told me Patricia was a wonderful grandma and that they were good pals. “Let’s just sit here and swing our feet.”, she said to Kobe as they sat on a bench together. She had that smile and her eyes were so full of love as she followed him around while Tanya and I caught-up.

My favorite Patricia memory was from a night in the fall.  Sonya, Tanya, Denise and I wanted to sleep outside in hammocks behind their house. Maybe 1 or 2 of us were on lawn chairs. It took a while to get to sleep, hammock sleeping can be awkward. We were spooking ourselves out with sounds of the night. Eventually, we got to sleep.  Around 3 or 4 in the morning, we were awoken by Patricia calling, “Girls, girls, girls…it’s snowing.” What?!? It was beautiful to look around in the San Cristobal night and have snowflakes fall on us. It was also wild and unique! She got us inside with our sleeping bags and pillows and we went back to sleep for a few hours. This was a story that I loved to recall with Tanya just by saying, “Girls, girls…” and we would start laughing. I can still picture the entire scene.

I am so grateful to Patricia for that memory. I’m grateful to her for her 2 amazing daughters. I’m grateful to her for Sonya, who has been a loyal friend and support to me for 41 years. I’m grateful to her for all of the good times at her house and for her love. She was always kind and appreciative of me. Thank you, Patricia, I love you.  

The last day I hung out with Patricia was in February. We were in her apartment and she decided she wanted to go for a walk, so we went and stood by the duck pond. Her eyes weren't great and the terrain was uneven but she didn't want much help. After she told me about the regency romance she was reading, she said she was okay with dying now, that she felt her family was alright, no one in crisis. It wasn't a bad time to go. I asked her what she thought would happen after death. Since I'd spent so much time in my life talking to her about spiritual things, I assumed she would have a wise and cogent answer, but she sort of shrugged and said she hadn't thought about it much. She asked me the same. I said I didn't know, but I hoped we were like ocean waves and we'd just go back into the water we came from. She seemed to like that, said it made her feel better about death. 

In life, she gave me a place to stay when I didn't want to go home; she took me to a great play in London; she helped me register for college when I decided days before school started that I wanted to go to a totally different one than I'd thought; she gave me books...lots and lots of books; we never quite settled on my enneagram number (she was a 5 and said I couldn't be a 5 even though the tests always said that) but she thought a 7 or a 9; so many things happened under her roof and she would occasionally check in, bring us snacks, and make sure we were properly hydrated. 

When Tanya broke up with her boyfriend Brian, Patricia flew me to Austin to help her pack and drive back with her. The A/C in her truck broke and Tanya and I wound up pouring gallons of water all over each other until we got to the hotel Patricia had secured for us. She was always there, making sure even when life was a four-star shitshow we would be okay.

Her fridge in San Cristobal  was a strange and wondrous landscape. Sara Lee pound cake? Potato chips dipped in cottage cheese? Pea salad? Ah, and for me...the packed lunch on weekdays, sitting out next to Tanya's on the counter. Manna. Bagels with cream cheese, cheese sandwiches, apples. Always a Thanksgiving invitation. Someone gave a shit, thank God. 

She came to my readings in town. She called me a treasure. She asked me to eulogize Tanya. I loved her voice, that drawl, and I can still hear it like she's sitting next to me right now. I was overwhelmed with gratitude whenever she was around. I am still overwhelmed by the gift of her children who both changed my life. And so on and so forth. 

Last year, I went to see her at Teresa's house where she was staying. I was just finishing up cancer treatment and she wanted to know everything about it. She told me about her Zoom spiritual book club and her Zoom enneagram group. She was sharp as ever, incisive and piercing with those amazing eyes. There was a storm brewing outside, very Taos dramatic, and as I was leaving she stood on the porch crying and said it would be the last time we saw each other. I said nope, no way, and promised I would see her again.  I didn't like the idea of a thunderstorm, me still almost bald and her crying being the final moments of our relationship. 

I was so delighted when she allowed Jessie and I to visit in her last months. I'm so happy we got to talk about death, both of us being on the brink of it in our own ways, while we watched the ducks. I will always remember standing there with her in that little paperboy hat that was so cute, her giggling girlishly about how silly life was after all. Once we had talked about death awhile (we knew we needed to wrap it up since Sonya and Jessie would be back soon with dinner), she said..."So you really think you're a five, huh?"

Patricia was one of the first women I met after moving from Sweden. Being San Cristobal neighbors, our lives became quite intertwined. Although our family moved away from Taos for many years, we always kept in touch. When visiting Taos, we often stayed at her house.

Over the years, shared joys and hardships, a bond of sisterhood formed that transcended distance and time.

No matter the circumstances or her own struggles, Patricia always found the time and compassion to lend an ear and offer unwavering support to her friends. I still have the impulse to call her.

Rest in peace my friend. See you on the other side of the rainbow bridge. 

 I first met Patricia when John and I were dating (about 45 years ago).  I went with him to San Cristobal to meet his closest friends.  I felt accepted by everyone, but I  immediately felt  a close rapport with Patricia.  Her warmth drew me in.  I saw her infrequently over the years and always felt an immediate connection.  In 2020 she, Alexander and Diane, and John and I met in San Antonio and spent  two days of sight seeing and evenings sitting  in the living room of their hotel suite and talking  until wee hours of the morning.

In the past year and a half since she was in Austin and we had moved to McKinney, we had frequent hour long  conversations on speaker phone.

I am thankful she was my friend.  I miss her - her warmth,  her compassion, and her sharp inquisitive mind.