Pat

Pat died.

I feel awful that I didn't take the chance to to see her, squeeze her bony hand and give her a kiss on the cheek before she slipped away. I had visited her about three months ago and we had had a quiet conversation then. Susan Creager had called me the week before and conveyed the message that Pat was only going to last a week, which was about right. But got so wrapped up in my own sense of importance and business that I forgot all about her until we saw her obituary in the paper today (Jan. 18).


"Patricia Faith Headlund 1929 ~ 2009 Our dear cousin, Patricia Faith Headlund, born 30th October 1929 to Wallace and Lydia Almstedt Headlund, passed away 13th January 2009. We grew up as a close knit group of cousins. Pat attended East High, SLC High, the U of U and LDS Business College. She worked at Manpower. Pat was a member and teacher in the LDS church. Patricia is survived by cousins, Phyllis McGrath, Edwin (Shirley) Almstedt, Virginia (Marshall) Dignam, and many other cousins. A memorial service will be held in the spring. The family would like to thank the staffs at the U of U Hospital and The Residence CareSource Hospice for their care of Patricia."


What a ride we had with Pat as our neighbor. I remember seeing her the first time when we had just purchased our home, on our in the lovely Yale-Harvard neighborhood in Salt Lake. when we were buying our home on Yale Avenue. She was standing in her blue, ragged and torn down jacket in the middle of summer, looking at us with secret curiosity, all the while trying to hide behind an untrimmed tree. She had "Kitty" by her side, as always. She was holding the garden hose in her hand, with water leaking out of the nozzle and dripping onto her bedroom slippers. The real estate agent said, "Dont' worry about Pat. She isn't going to last long. Little did we know that we would be Pat's across-the-street neighbors for twenty three years. During that yawn of time, she was part of our lives and we were part of hers.

The kids from blocks around knew about Pat. To themhe was that "creepy" witch with her tangled grey hair matted into something like a beaver's tail, tied with a shoelace. But the smelly clothes and grassless"yard" were only the beginning. Everybody from the neighborhood knew about her, but few dared to approach her. The neighborhood children often played "double dare" as they ran up to her front door to slap it quickly and run. Pat was our own neighbornood Boo Radley, mysterious and shy, but also able to hold her own when something displeased her. Late at night when it was summer-hot and all windows were open, you could hear Pat calling, "Here Kitty, kitty, kitty. The cat was black, and had long unkempt fur. They were a pair.

To look at Pat was hard. She had had not eaten well over the years and her skin was drawn and yellow. The few teeth she had were all brown and chipped. The worst sign of true neglect and lack of care was her legs. Ulcers on them had broken open and she had to wrap them when she took her trek to Emigration Market to buy food and supplies. But what people on our street noticed most was the black gargabe bags she wore like a dress. Of course, she was nick-named, "the bag lady."

The story goes that she had been a good student and a fine "temp" employe" for several businesses over the years. But after her father and her mother both passed away she let everything go. At this moment the house is in the "let it go" stage. For years people have knocked on our Yale Ave house door to inquire about the house - looks like a good deal for someone. However, I did go in the house once, and belive me, it's not a fixer-upper. Some wheeler-dealer builder is going to get it pretty soon and pull it over.



The first audible encounter with her was when she asked Leonard or one of the boys to straighten out her hose or to get an old plastic chair for her to sit on while she watered and watered. This was her recreation - watching people on the street while she watered and watered. After a few weeks in our house, she did make conversation with us. We offered to help her with some new clothes, but she refused. At first she wouldn't let us scrape her walks, but after about five years, she relented and let us and our kids keep ice off the sidewalk. after her parents both died and her health started to wind down, she was at a loss for upkeep. So entropy took over and the house and yard continued to deteriorate. In the summer, she would prop her door open for ventilation. Her favorite and only cleaning product was Lysol, which you could smell from around the corner. It seemed to be her only effort to be clean. Once, I knocked on her door so I could bring her a light bulb, sometimes she had only one, but she refused to let me anywhere near the door.

Sometimes we wandered over to visit Pat, who seemed nice enough, and I tried many times to buy her some new clothes. Of course, she refused. She was a proud lady. She was too stubborn and independent. But there was good blood between Pat's place and ours. We chatted with her in the summer time and helped her when she asked - which was almost never. She adored our children grandchildren - three little girls. She would relinquish candy canes at Christmas and gave wedding gifts to our kids when they married. But Pat was stubborn, but could be a little mean. She yelled at the neighborhood kids and chased them away.

She thought she owned the parking place in front of her house. Once, when some of our children parked there and carelessly tossed some paper cups into the gutter in front of her house after a night party. We all had heck to pay. Pat really blew up because she thought the place in front of her curb was "her" property. But she didn't stay mad very long.

The days came and went, and our children grew from elementary to high school, to missions, marriage, and beyond. Pat was still there in the summers watering from that leaky hose, her hair still tied up in a shoe lace with her beaver tail hanging down her back. Lots of water was wasted while we watched over Pat, still in the same blue down jacket, with more rips and tears.

There were many memorable moments. Our grandchildren loved to talk to her and they made friends. Once, when some of our grandchildren were living in our basement apartment, some naughty kids started tormenting Pat by kicking the door. Little Mary Grace - about four years old - marched endignently across the street and chewed out Pat's unwanted tormentors. Good for Mary Grace!

Then one disaster after another began to play out. The first awful thing was when Pat's garage burned. You might think that was good, but Pat refused to let anybody touch anything on her property, which made everybody on the street mad. There were stray cats and other unwanted creatures. This went on for a few years, until people on the street complained to the city.

Pat finally fell down in her house and broke her leg. This made it necessary for her to move. She lived in a room in some old hotel for a year. Then she had to be moved to one nursing home and then another, and another. She was there for several years. She was pretty happy, but she still liked to scold people who walked down her hallway. She actually sat in her wheel chair and gave pepople a bad time about one thing and another. But she had several friends who would still come to visit. Several of us visited her on a quarterly basis. One highlight of her life was when Daryl Hoole (a luminary figure in our neighborhood) came to visit Pat. Pat wanted to meet Daryl and they had a nice long visit, just as though they had been best friends their whole lives.

Our three years in Russia made it hard for us to stay abreast of Pat and her situation, and my visits to her became less frequent. Margaret's girls and myself got one of those skinny little fake little Christmas tree for her the last two or three years. The girls and I decorated it with primitive dolls out of handkerchiefs. She loved it and after the last Christmas she wanted me to leave it up for a few more months.

Pat's house is still there and looks about the same as the first day we moved in. Yesterday I drove past her crumbling property. All the windows are boarded up. Nobody has taken care of it but it is still standing. I did get a chance to see the inside of Pat's house once when a friend of Pat's had a key. Don't ever ask me what it was like.

But Pat was a lady in her own right. She always kept her dignity and wouldn't let anybody push her around. She never got confused or demented as far as I could tell . She always knew where she stood and held firm to her position.

Once, when I had her on the phone (she got so she felt free to call me, and I felt free to call her), she found out that I was going to the Shakespeare festival in Cedar City. Right there on the phone she quoted me an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet. "What light through yonder window breaks, it is the East and Juliet is the sun - arise fair sun and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid art is far more fair than she....."

I can still feel her tiny bones, her paper-thin skin, and her calling, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty." Here kitty.