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I need a Patrick funny!

My friend, Dawn, lost her father today. I never met him and I have only really known her since Patrick died. She has been a good friend. One of the first things she told me, and I think she would be okay with me sharing this, is that Patrick was one of her work crushes! I had an immediate bond with her because he was my work crush too! And, I know that he was the kind of guy that people had crushes on. I was okay with this because I knew I had his heart. In the short time I have known Dawn I have come to realize that she was extremely close to her father and I know she must be in a lot of pain.

Dawn enjoyed Patrick’s sense of humor and we’ve enjoyed sharing stories of his antics from the other side of his life (home vs work). I am truly blessed to have met her. Today she told me she needed a Patrick funny so this is for her! It’s more than just a funny so you’ll have to read through it to get to that part! I enjoyed reading it again just now and I put it here to preserve the memory.  I hope you will enjoy it too.

Letter from Dan Snider shortly after Patrick’s death (with Dan’s permission)

I heard about the tragic news. I am writing to you with a heavy heart. Laura and I are extremely saddened.

Since I heard on Wednesday afternoon, Laura and I have prayed for comfort for you and your daughters. Memories of Pat have been often in my mind in the last few days.

I would like to share with you some of my memories and what Pat meant to me in the decade that I was fortunate to have worked with him and got to know him. Danell, I know most people refer to Pat as Patrick but he told me I could call him Pat as this is how I knew him. I am not doing this at all to show any disrespect but because that is how I knew him and it seems natural for me.

The last time I saw Pat was at the Clovis Recreation Department approximately 2 years ago where he played floorball. I had just finished a practice session with my children’s basketball team and I saw Pat standing by the entrance as I was leaving. We talked for a few minutes catching up briefly on work and our families. It was nice to talk with him.

Two Saturday’s ago (April 9th), I took my daughter to shoot basketball at Clovis East around 7:00 PM. In the parking lot by the soccer and baseball field, my daughter sees this vehicle parked and says, “Dad, look at the van, now that is cool.” I believe the vehicle there that night was Pat’s as I know his VW van, as I used to see it parked at his outpatient clinic all the time over the last 11 years. I was about to go see if it was Pat but was running late and decided not to. I am disappointed that I did not. The Sunday of April 17th I was reading the sports page and saw your daughter Camille’s name in the paper as part of the Clovis East championship soccer team. Seeing her name brought memories back to me of Pat, you and your family. Then last Wednesday Olga shared with me the news of Pat.

As I believe you know, Pat and I went to the same physical therapy school and he was a year ahead of me. There was a student in Pat’s class that was older at the time named Dennis Fearing. Dennis decided that school was moving too fast while raising a family and ended up finishing in the class I graduated in. I became very good friends with Dennis. I helped Dennis with his studies at times during physical therapy school. He mentioned to me that there was this super smart guy in his class the year before. He told me this guy had a photographic memory and when a teacher asked a question this guy would give a speech like it was coming from a textbook and his name was Patrick teNyenhuis. Dennis was extremely impressed by Pat. As you may also know, I ended up working with Pat at the VA because I also received a scholarship from the VA and owed them time.

I greatly appreciated Pat and your kindness towards me when I began working at the VA. Coming to your house for several parties and Pat organizing my local bachelor party, I will never forget. I am grateful to you both for being at my wedding in Las Vegas. I also remember going to dinner with you and Pat, I believe in the Tower district and seeing Mission Impossible. 

As I read an article in the paper recently about Pat and his joy of brewing, playing the banjo and floorball, it brought a smile to my face. I remember Pat playing his banjo at lunch time in this small office next to my desk at work. As I understand it, he became quite an accomplished banjo player. I remember when Pat began to play floorball and now I read that he was on a traveling team. I also remember how much Pat loved his beer. Another thing Pat loved that comes to my mind every time I think of him is his VW van. I remember when he purchased it and how happy he was and all the work he told me he put in it refurbishing it. That vehicle is a part of who he was. I remember when Pat shared the news of when you were pregnant with both of your children and the smile he had. Pat told me when you were pregnant with Sierra that “he slipped one past the goalie.” Pat’s dry sense of humor is something that I missed a lot when he left the VA.

After I graduated PT school and began working at the VA, I had to take a licensure exam. I took the licensure exam several months after beginning my work at the VA. I had to drive to Los Angeles to take it, no internet at the time. Pat knew I was nervous about finding out the results and at that time the results came 4-6 weeks later in the mail. Pat stated to me on several occasions that the easiest way to know you passed is if you receive a yellow envelope. He stated that people who failed received a white envelope. I am usually not that gullible but Pat sold it real well. The day I received my exam results and saw a white envelope, I was crushed until I actually opened the envelope and found out that Pat messed with me. Pat had shared priceless stories with me about his first year at the VA before I got there and his interaction with the physical therapist I replaced. They are not appropriate stories to share at this time, but I still bust up laughing when I think of them.

Although Pat had only one year experience more than me, I felt he was a mentor to me. Pat began the casting program at the VA and taught me how to do them. Since then I have taught many people. The thing I admired about Pat was his work ethic. He was always at work on time and worked his full shift without cutting corners. He never cheated the VA out of one minute of work. He had the highest integrity and was extremely ethical. Pat walked the talk so to speak. It was easy for me to want to work with someone like that. I have been around a lot of physical therapists over the years and there is no one better than Pat!

I will greatly miss Pat and I will never forget him. He was part of my work life for 12 years. I feel honored and privileged to have known him. Laura and I pray for you and your daughters. God bless you and your family.

I am so grateful to have stories like this to share and remember Patrick. By the way, he was Pat when I met him too and for the next 14 years. In 1999, or sometime shortly before, he decided that Patrick was a more grown up name and decided that he would be “Patrick in 2000”. At the time this really annoyed me but once Patrick was committed to something, it was pointless to resist. I changed to Patrick like everyone else and now it is how I remember him.  Please feel free to share any other funny stories in the comments. Dawn could use the laugh today!

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Shaw Avenue 11/16/16

This was originally published on my Tumblr blog, which I’ve been slowly moving over. The picture was taken on 4/23/16 during a family walk to get us out of the house. My siblings and I are standing with our childhood home in the background. Denny, Dawan, Me, & Denise

The holidays are quickly approaching and I want to run in the other direction. Back to April. Back to last November. I am just so unprepared for holidays without him. At the same time I am really looking forward to January because that will mean the holidays are over.

I really don’t spend my days crying. I promise. And most of the time I am okay but it really doesn’t take much for the thoughts and pictures to start scrolling through my mind. If I go anywhere during the day I inevitably end up driving or crossing Shaw. I can’t really avoid it.

It’s crazy how much of our life is tied to Shaw. We both worked on Shaw. One of my elementary schools is on Shaw. We met a few blocks from Shaw. We opened our first checking account on Shaw. Fresno State is on Shaw. I spent four years of my childhood in the big house on the corner of Shaw and DeWolf. And he died on Shaw, a half mile away from that house. I have now driven down that section of Shaw 3 or 4 times. I only go there when I really need to let it all out and I don’t have to do that very often.

Ironically some of my best and a few of my worst childhood memories are from that house on Shaw. We moved from a tiny 3 bedroom house to that house and I think we all thought we were rich! A lot of the time we had our own bedrooms and somehow the 6 of us survived with 1 bathroom. I don’t even know how that was possible! We had all kinds of animals including a horse, a steer, goats, rabbits, ducks, geese, dogs, cats and pigs. There was always something to do. One time the pig had 13 piglets. They were cute when they were little. I remember one day I sat in the pasture and played with them. Later that day I was on the porch when they decided to go for a walk. Across Shaw. As I watched a car sped through their pack. All you could hear were squeals of pain. I ran in the house screaming. I was so upset I couldn’t really articulate what had happened and my parents thought one of the other kids had been hit. Miraculously only a few died. One had a broken leg but my mom had a splint put on it and it recovered just fine. We laugh at that story.

Another time I was getting home from school on the bus after track practice. There was an almond orchard surrounding two sides of our property. I saw Denise and Denny jogging along the orchard and, a little further, I saw that someone had left a few piles of clothes in the orchard. The bus stopped across the street from my house and the bus driver got out and let me cross the street. Suddenly, I saw a strange man with my brother and sister. He looked kind of crazy and seemed to have his arms on Denny. He asked me to get my parents and told me he had hit two men. We later found out that the tragedy began when a girl was driving by our house, pulling a horse trailer, and hit our Saint Bernard, Morley. Since she had the horse trailer she didn’t want to stop so she went home and told her dad and uncle. They lived less than a quarter mile away, on the opposite side of Shaw. Her dad and uncle drove over to tell us. For some reason they decided to park across Shaw instead of pulling into our driveway. I think the sun was low in the sky as they crossed. The driver never saw them. They were thrown into the orchard and killed instantly. I didn’t realize that I had seen them. Our dog was injured and my parents had him put down. What an awful day! This was forty years ago and I still remember almost everything about it.

How ironic that Patrick would ride past that house and a little way down the road his life would also end tragically. I didn’t really think about the fact that people lived near the accident site and would now be forever tied to this tragedy like I am to the one forty years earlier.

Today Camille went to Subs and Grubs for lunch. She used her phone to call in the order for herself and 3 others. As they went up to pay, the owner asked which one was Camille. She told her she recognized the name from caller ID. She pulled her aside and told her she lived out on Shaw and had been praying for my family. She didn’t charge Camille for her lunch. Such a small, crazy world! What a nice and unexpected gesture! I continue to feel the love that surrounds us, some of it from people we don’t even know. This is such a horrific experience but we are very blessed that so many people care about us and continue to do anything they can think of to help us. I know that I will survive the holidays. I will be surrounded by family and we will keep moving forward. There’s really no other way to go.

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Loose Ends – 10/13/16

Originally posted on 10/13/16.

I felt normal for a while. Not that I forgot what was going on but I was feeling a little happy, not so sad. Last week grief found me again and I pushed it back for a while but I can only ignore it for so long. So I write…

Tonight I am grateful for Cathy, who is always there when I need her. Earlier I needed some company and she knew without me even asking. Some days are just unexpectedly bad. And I know I have a long list of people who would be here if needed but a best friend is nice. She knows she doesn’t have to comfort me. She doesn’t agonize over what to say because she knows all I need is her company.

I feel like there are so many loose ends in my life right now. I have no control over a lot of them and some I am just not ready to deal with. I feel better when some are resolved and others don’t go the way I planned. That happened tonight. Things are not going the way I anticipated and it was really hard to hear. I always hate it when people write cryptic things on social media but I really can’t get into specifics right now. Hopefully I will be able to share more soon.

I finalized my will and trust a few weeks ago. This may seem like a strange thing to be happy about but it gives me comfort knowing that everything is spelled out for the girls should anything happen to me. They also took care of the paperwork for the title on the house which is good. The title now lists me as Danell teNyenhuis, an unmarried woman. That’s so bizarre to me. I think I took 18 months to plan my wedding. Such a joyful, happy occasion. And then, almost 24 years later, in an instant, I am unmarried. I guess it is better than saying widowed but it is just so odd to see. I still feel like I’m going to wake up and realize it was all a dream…

Matt is now the official owner of the VW bus. So you may see it around town. For now it’s still parked in my garage but I am happy he is taking it. Patrick loved that bus and he would be happy that his little brother will use it and enjoy it. Matt has already taken the kids

camping several times so they are making lots of new memories.

I finally got the trees trimmed in the backyard so I should be able to spend less time dealing with the pool. So that’s three kind-of-big things resolved and that feels good. Hopefully I will continue to check things off my list and my life will feel a little less chaotic. For now I will continue to write…

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A Day at the Boardwalk – 9/19/16

This was originally posted on 9/19/16.

Yesterday Camille and I were invited to join Linda Crews and kids on a day trip to Santa Cruz. Camille and Julia have been close friends since elementary school and Linda and I are close friends also. We had a great day. We smiled, we laughed and yes, we hunted Pokémon together. I knew there would be hard parts too, Patrick loved Santa Cruz.

When I got home I was very sad and I wanted to write but I felt a little guilty. This blog is so helpful to me but I don’t want it to hurt others. I didn’t want Linda to feel bad that I was sad. She is a good friend though so I knew she would probably understand but I just couldn’t do it.

This morning I woke up and Linda had added some pictures to Facebook and a little comment about missing Craig, who is on a business trip, and it brought it all into perspective for me. Of course it was okay for me to miss Patrick! Linda had a great day too but she still wished Craig could have been there to share it. I don’t want to go through life moping that he is not there every time I do something fun but I need to acknowledge that I do have those feelings. No matter how much fun I have he is still not here when I get back home.

There were memories all day. As we drove over the Pacheco pass I remembered the trip where the darn Ford Pinto broke down at the very top. We had to be towed back to Los Banos and we spent the night at the Cinderella motel. The tow truck driver dropped us off on the other side of 152 but that hotel had no rooms so we had to haul all of our stuff across the street. I’m sure Patrick did most of the hauling. We had planned to go camping with friends and I think we had two ice chests packed with “provisions”, mainly the kind to keep us hydrated. 😉The next day dad came and rescued us.

As we drove into Santa Cruz we passed the hill where Zio Carlo’s beach house was. We stayed there several times and it was always a fun trip. As we walked onto the boardwalk the train was leaving and I remembered the time we took that up into the foothills for the day. Camille rode the carousel and was able to throw a ring in the clown’s mouth. This would have made her dad proud and also brought back memories of the many summers he spent time there with his family.

There were also a few trips with the girls and I have pictures to help remember those. Our more recent vacations were spent in the Pismo and Cayucos areas so those will be harder trips for me. Especially since many of them were anniversary trips. Santa Cruz was a good first trip back to the beach and it will help prepare me for Thanksgiving in Pismo.

There are going to be good days and bad days and I just have to find a way to get through all of them. I hope that it will get easier. I know life will keep moving forward and that’s what I have to do also. But I’m not going to lie, it would be great to wake up and find that this was just a really intense nightmare. And I know most of you would agree. 🙂