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Patrick James Richards
March 22, 1926 ~ January 9, 2018 (age 91) 91 Years Old Light a Candle
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Message from South Bend
January 17, 2018 9:57 AM
A Eulogy for Patrick Joseph Richards
I will remember Pat every time that I open my toolbox, just as I’ve thought of him every time that I’ve opened my toolbox since he started giving me tools for my birthdays about thirty-five years ago. A set of tin snips . . . which I wondered about at the time and which I now find I cannot work without. Bolt cutters, another tool that I could not have imagined myself needing, and which I use almost every day when I am working with my hands. A set of riveting tools which I’ve never used, but which I’ve no doubt will be right there when I do need them. A set of chisels. A propane torch. And, there in the tool box, words. He taught me that it was plumbers who invented all the really useful words, back before PVC plastic and glue, when plumbing was lead, copper, a hack saw, solder, heat, cast iron, oakum, sweat, and words. When you are fixing a small problem like a ancient leaky valve, and in trying to remove the valve, you break the pipe somewhere inside the wall which begins to flood the house, you need special words for the occasion. And, since the valve that you are replacing was the cut off valve, you then try the main cut off valve for the house, and find that it too needs to be replaced, … something that you had been meaning to do . . . Now you need very very strong language to clear your mind so that don’t start demolishing the walls looking for the broken pipe that is flooding the house . . . words clear your head so that you know to go out to the street where you will find that the main cutoff valve from the city water to the house is now part of a very large, very old tree. Plumbers, Pat taught me, invented the words that would help you solve that problem.
Pat could curse like a sailor, because he was one, and a steelworker, and a proud Italian . . . but I only heard curse like an Irishman, the son of an Irish immigrant mother, turning a moment of anger into memorable poetry. Once when I was driving with him, a man in a pickup truck cut me off. Pat’s response was, “That’s Ok. He’s in a hurry so that he can get home and get into bed with his mother.”
Pat was a lonely man who made the people that he was with feel good about being alive. He only said something when there was something to say, and then only if you were listening. He did not need to hear the sound of his own voice. He enjoyed conversation, especially intelligent, informed disagreement.
Patrick Richards could and would listen, without judgement. A man of simple principals, he would not cast the first stone. And if the first stone were cast, he would not cast the second, nor would he judge those who did. Pat was not without sin, at least that is what he led me to believe, but I did not witness in the forty five years that I knew him a single moment, not one utterance, not a glance, that was without grace, consideration, humor, wit, and what he has taught me about how deeply one must dig into oneself in order to love completely.
Over the past few days, I’ve heard stories that would always include “Pat said this all the time” . . . sayings, a witty remark, but it would be often be something that I had never, ever, heard Pat say. I spoke to him almost every day for the last ten years, usually several times each day. You’d think that I’d hear something that he said “all the time”. I believe that this happened because Pat listened, and when he spoke, he was speaking to the person that he had been listening to. It is always true that we each know a different part of someone, but I think that this is more true of Pat than of most of us. He was selfless, and because he was selfless, he could be for each of us what we needed him to be.
He did his best to live by the principals that he believed in. But he did not need you to know this, nor did he need anyone else to believe as he believed. He was not a hypocrite in anything, or in any way of which I am aware. I know of no other human being, except my mother, his second wife, about whom I can say this to the same extent. Though, from Pat’s stories, his first wife Evie was an equal partner in all that they did together.
Perhaps you never heard Pat say something that he said to me on several occasions which I’ve since repeated many times to people who, like me when Pat said it to me, needed to hear it.
“If you cannot do anything good for yourself, do something good for someone else.”
When Pat said this to me, I needed to hear it. His words were there to meet me in the morning when I found that I was unable to get myself out of bed …. day after day, week after week, month after month, for years. When just breathing was agony, and my only solace was sleep, being mildly drunk, or contemplating my own death, Pat listened. I raved. Maybe he never said …. these exact words. Maybe my mind created this memory, knowing that …. it’s what I needed to hear. Pat was not one to think that he knew enough about living to give advice. He listened. But, even if Pat never said it, I know that he meant it because I witnessed this in how he lived.
“If you cannot do anything good for yourself, do something good for someone else.”
When I could not imagine anything good for myself, when even my favorite food was like eating ashes, when I could not hear music even in the voices of those that I loved, imagining something good for someone else was something that I could do. And, in doing what little I could do for others, I was out of bed, with a reason to be there, a purpose, if it was nothing more than giving a child a chance to fly a kite that day. And, when I’d forget, I’d call Pat. And, he would listen. When nobody else would, or could, he could, and he did. I do not recall a single instance of him telling me that he was busy and could I call back later.
Patrick Joseph Richards walked the long walk, every step of it, as best he could. A combat veteran, a man dedicated to the participatory democracy that he offered his life for. He believed in work, and as an elected union official he believed in and fought for equal and fair pay for everyone. It meant the world to him to pay his bills because there was a time when he was not able to do so. His close friend Tommy and his nephew Mike found him dead when they went to his house as they did every Tuesday morning for coffee, and Pat’s favorite activity, a conversation about the state of the world. They found that Pat had signed his checks, addressed and stamped his last envelopes. He paid his bills, if it was the last thing that he did, he paid his bills.
As an only son, he cared for his immigrant mother while she died over long years, visiting her every day. There was no one else to do it. He did the same for two wives, never faltering in the faithful love that he had expressed, the promises that he had made.
One last thing, he knew how to wear a hat. He was that rarest of men born and raised in the Midwest: he could make worn blue jeans and faded suspenders look dapper with the tilt of his hat, the look in his eye, and the way that he extended his hand to shake yours like it was the best thing that had happened to him all day.
I will remember Pat every time that I open my toolbox, just as I’ve thought of him every time that I’ve opened my toolbox since he started giving me tools for my birthdays about thirty-five years ago. A set of tin snips . . . which I wondered about at the time and which I now find I cannot work without. Bolt cutters, another tool that I could not have imagined myself needing, and which I use almost every day when I am working with my hands. A set of riveting tools which I’ve never used, but which I’ve no doubt will be right there when I do need them. A set of chisels. A propane torch. And, there in the tool box, words. He taught me that it was plumbers who invented all the really useful words, back before PVC plastic and glue, when plumbing was lead, copper, a hack saw, solder, heat, cast iron, oakum, sweat, and words. When you are fixing a small problem like a ancient leaky valve, and in trying to remove the valve, you break the pipe somewhere inside the wall which begins to flood the house, you need special words for the occasion. And, since the valve that you are replacing was the cut off valve, you then try the main cut off valve for the house, and find that it too needs to be replaced, … something that you had been meaning to do . . . Now you need very very strong language to clear your mind so that don’t start demolishing the walls looking for the broken pipe that is flooding the house . . . words clear your head so that you know to go out to the street where you will find that the main cutoff valve from the city water to the house is now part of a very large, very old tree. Plumbers, Pat taught me, invented the words that would help you solve that problem.
Pat could curse like a sailor, because he was one, and a steelworker, and a proud Italian . . . but I only heard curse like an Irishman, the son of an Irish immigrant mother, turning a moment of anger into memorable poetry. Once when I was driving with him, a man in a pickup truck cut me off. Pat’s response was, “That’s Ok. He’s in a hurry so that he can get home and get into bed with his mother.”
Pat was a lonely man who made the people that he was with feel good about being alive. He only said something when there was something to say, and then only if you were listening. He did not need to hear the sound of his own voice. He enjoyed conversation, especially intelligent, informed disagreement.
Patrick Richards could and would listen, without judgement. A man of simple principals, he would not cast the first stone. And if the first stone were cast, he would not cast the second, nor would he judge those who did. Pat was not without sin, at least that is what he led me to believe, but I did not witness in the forty five years that I knew him a single moment, not one utterance, not a glance, that was without grace, consideration, humor, wit, and what he has taught me about how deeply one must dig into oneself in order to love completely.
Over the past few days, I’ve heard stories that would always include “Pat said this all the time” . . . sayings, a witty remark, but it would be often be something that I had never, ever, heard Pat say. I spoke to him almost every day for the last ten years, usually several times each day. You’d think that I’d hear something that he said “all the time”. I believe that this happened because Pat listened, and when he spoke, he was speaking to the person that he had been listening to. It is always true that we each know a different part of someone, but I think that this is more true of Pat than of most of us. He was selfless, and because he was selfless, he could be for each of us what we needed him to be.
He did his best to live by the principals that he believed in. But he did not need you to know this, nor did he need anyone else to believe as he believed. He was not a hypocrite in anything, or in any way of which I am aware. I know of no other human being, except my mother, his second wife, about whom I can say this to the same extent. Though, from Pat’s stories, his first wife Evie was an equal partner in all that they did together.
Perhaps you never heard Pat say something that he said to me on several occasions which I’ve since repeated many times to people who, like me when Pat said it to me, needed to hear it.
“If you cannot do anything good for yourself, do something good for someone else.”
When Pat said this to me, I needed to hear it. His words were there to meet me in the morning when I found that I was unable to get myself out of bed …. day after day, week after week, month after month, for years. When just breathing was agony, and my only solace was sleep, being mildly drunk, or contemplating my own death, Pat listened. I raved. Maybe he never said …. these exact words. Maybe my mind created this memory, knowing that …. it’s what I needed to hear. Pat was not one to think that he knew enough about living to give advice. He listened. But, even if Pat never said it, I know that he meant it because I witnessed this in how he lived.
“If you cannot do anything good for yourself, do something good for someone else.”
When I could not imagine anything good for myself, when even my favorite food was like eating ashes, when I could not hear music even in the voices of those that I loved, imagining something good for someone else was something that I could do. And, in doing what little I could do for others, I was out of bed, with a reason to be there, a purpose, if it was nothing more than giving a child a chance to fly a kite that day. And, when I’d forget, I’d call Pat. And, he would listen. When nobody else would, or could, he could, and he did. I do not recall a single instance of him telling me that he was busy and could I call back later.
Patrick Joseph Richards walked the long walk, every step of it, as best he could. A combat veteran, a man dedicated to the participatory democracy that he offered his life for. He believed in work, and as an elected union official he believed in and fought for equal and fair pay for everyone. It meant the world to him to pay his bills because there was a time when he was not able to do so. His close friend Tommy and his nephew Mike found him dead when they went to his house as they did every Tuesday morning for coffee, and Pat’s favorite activity, a conversation about the state of the world. They found that Pat had signed his checks, addressed and stamped his last envelopes. He paid his bills, if it was the last thing that he did, he paid his bills.
As an only son, he cared for his immigrant mother while she died over long years, visiting her every day. There was no one else to do it. He did the same for two wives, never faltering in the faithful love that he had expressed, the promises that he had made.
One last thing, he knew how to wear a hat. He was that rarest of men born and raised in the Midwest: he could make worn blue jeans and faded suspenders look dapper with the tilt of his hat, the look in his eye, and the way that he extended his hand to shake yours like it was the best thing that had happened to him all day.
A candle was lit by Linda Lemere. (Neighbor)
on January 15, 2018 3:34 PM
I Was So Blessed To Have Pat as My Neighbor and Friend. I Have so Many Wonderful Memories I could share about Him! When i talked to Him we always Talked about whatever ND game had been on, Oh How he Loved Norte Dame, knowing that I always bought him a ND shirt at Christmas, sometimes Pat would Call just to Talk and if it was Bad out I would tell him to Please stay in today! His Response OK Then I would see the Garage Door open and off he went,Lol oh He will Be So Missed!I Although he Left Hearts Broken He also Left Treasured Memories! He was The Sweetest,Kindest Most Caring Man I Was Privledged to Call a Friend, RIP Pat I know you are now with your Beloved Peg and you Missed her so. Your will be Thought of Fondly and Missed Terribly......... Goodbye my Friend💕
I Was So Blessed To Have Pat as My Neighbor and Friend. I Have so Many Wonderful Memories I could share about Him! When i talked to Him we always Talked about whatever ND game had been on, Oh How he Loved Norte Dame, knowing that I always bought him a ND shirt at Christmas, sometimes Pat would Call just to Talk and if it was Bad out I would tell him to Please stay in today! His Response OK Then I would see the Garage Door open and off he went,Lol oh He will Be So Missed!I Although he Left Hearts Broken He also Left Treasured Memories! He was The Sweetest,Kindest Most Caring Man I Was Privledged to Call a Friend, RIP Pat I know you are now with your Beloved Peg and you Missed her so. Your will be Thought of Fondly and Missed Terribly......... Goodbye my Friend💕
Message from Tony Molina
January 13, 2018 10:40 AM
Pat, Having met you in my Notre Dame days, now 48 years ago, it was an honor to know you: a great heart and a great human being. You touched many lives- an inspiration to us all. You’ll be greatly missed, never forgotten.
Tony Molina M.D.
Tony Molina M.D.
Message from Penny Topper
January 13, 2018 9:17 AM
My deepest sympathy and condolences to the family.
Patrick was a great man and always made me smile,
he will always be loved and never forgotten.
Patrick was a great man and always made me smile,
he will always be loved and never forgotten.
A candle was lit by Penny Topper
on January 13, 2018 9:09 AM
A candle was lit by Christopher Snyder
on January 12, 2018 8:50 PM
...
Rest in peace Uncle Pat, my Godfather.
Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow is
a mystery and today is a gift,
which is why it is called the present.
What the caterpillar perceives is the end;
to the butterfly is just the beginning.
Everything that has a beginning has an ending.
Make your peace with that and all will be well.
...
Rest in peace Uncle Pat, my Godfather.
Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow is
a mystery and today is a gift,
which is why it is called the present.
What the caterpillar perceives is the end;
to the butterfly is just the beginning.
Everything that has a beginning has an ending.
Make your peace with that and all will be well.
A candle was lit by A Fellow Veteran
on January 12, 2018 1:24 PM
A candle was lit by FELLOW VETERAN
on January 12, 2018 12:01 PM
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