Patrick Wood Memorial

2011-12-08T10:09:00.001-08:00

Although Pomfret School has been in the forefront of gay issues for some time, I just recently discovered an insightful article about their gay-friendly campus. In 2009 the school paper, called The Pontefract after the school's namesake in England, questioned whether Pomfret was fully tolerant. Here are the students' responses.

Pomfret School Remembers Pat

2011-11-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

Pomfret School was kind enough to run a story of the scholarship established in his memory. The following appeared in the fall 2011 Pomfret School Bulletin.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAT!!!

2011-10-29T01:08:00.000-07:00

Media Coverage of Pat

2011-08-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

Two local newspapers explained more about Caed Jones, this year's winner of Pat's scholarship to Pomfret School.

The Norwich Bulletin July 31, 2011

The Putnam Town Crier August 11, 2011

A Student Who Cared

2011-08-03T17:58:00.000-07:00

Two more articles recognize the student who wrote them, as well as Pat. Sara Markes was a shy, bubbling eighth-grader when she entered Rectory School several years ago. Contradictory as that may sound, it described her ability to be soft spoken but bursting with curiosity and indignation at the same time. She felt a kinship with Pat. She cared deeply about everything. She would rush into newspaper class, talking faster than I could understand about injustice. The result was two gutsy articles about tolerance for gays. She was the first to write what everyone knew in their hearts but rarely admitted. She was a fighter for goodness, including Patrick.

The Effect of Pat in School

2011-07-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

Pat's death has affected people who didn't know him. I see it in my school. Kids know that he died and seek me out. They have a feeling that I connect on a different level because of him, and they're right. Whether it's bad test day, bad friend day, or just plain things are wrong day, they know I'm a listener. Because of Pat. Sometimes we take it to the next step and write about it for the school paper, and because these articles are so closely tied to Pat, I continue to post a few in hopes that others who mourn can see how his death is changing. It's rippling through those who knew him and those who didn't. It's hurting and yet it's strengthening. It's a whiplash between good and grief. The articles that come out of the bad days are some of the good. Kids are thinking. They're serious. They want tolerance, and they want it for everybody. They inspire me to want it, too, whether it's for eleven-year-olds in Springfield who commit suicide or for anyone feeling lost. The articles are a collaborative search for answers. They are a search for Pat.

Pat's Garden

2011-07-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Lavender Franz Schubert Phlox

Monarchs on the Gay Feather

A friend once told me that butterflies are spirits. If so, maybe Pat has come home.

Pat's Winner

2011-07-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

Bob, Caed with parents TJ and Tiffany, and Lisette

The new winner of Pat's Award says so much about Pat. He's kind and loyal. He works incredibly hard, but he doesn't forget what's important. Caed Jones graduated from Pomfret Community School in June, and Bob and I were there to present him with a silver bowl and the honor of academic achievement. Beyond merit, Caed was chosen for his outstanding character, which earned him the respect of his classmates and Pomfret School where he will attend in the fall. He represents the best of Pat's life: goodness beyond greatness. It was our honor to recognize him.

Happy birthday Pat!!!

2010-10-29T01:01:00.001-07:00

Bullycide

2010-08-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Pat’s life is still changing. It’s taking on new forms in the way all who knew him think and act and prioritize. For Andrew Nielson, it’s been the life-changing video “Twenty-Three.” For Libby, it’s been acceptance into the best therapy degree program in the country. For Colin, it’s been to pursue a degree in finance, which has required advanced math and programming, much like Pat used to do. For Bob, it’s been to caretake Pat’s grave and the Pomfret cemetery in which he lies. For me, it’s been to learn by writing and doing what I think Pat would value. Mainly, my learning has been through school, working with middle school students, offering a new understanding of their lives and a reordering of my own. Some of those understandings are not really understandings at all, but a drive for a wider take on the world. It’s a drive which includes Pat’s story and which is unfortunately the story of many other young people. It’s a drive motivated by Pat, but also by the students I see every day–their worries, questions, and fears. What about the hurts, the hates, the unknown, and the heartbreaks? Why is there violence? How do you handle pain?

This year, in particular, students asked questions of why young people, their own age, were so despondent that they took their own lives. How did they get to the same point as Pat? How did life look so hopeless that as young as age eleven, they came home from school and died soon afterward? Sometimes their questions were simpler. Why can’t people treat each other fairly?

As the newspaper advisor for my school, I encouraged them to write. Explore those issues, interview others, make sense out of the questions they pondered. But deep down the questions were mine. How could I explore, interview, and make sense? I was the student. I was the one really learning, and I did it alongside my middle school comrades. With a few names deleted, here were some of the results. For easier viewing, click on the article and then magnify.

More on Pat's Scholarship

2010-08-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

From the Woodstock Villager, June 2010

One of the benefits of Pat's Scholarship is that it has allowed us to speak publicly about Pat and how we are encouraging his qualities in others. In the four years we've given the award, we've gone to area schools, explained a little about Pat, and praised local students. This year was different. This year we were able to thank two schools, which helped immensely after Pat died. Pomfret and Rectory schools have been paragons of caring institutions. I tried to explain the importance of that concern in my presentation remarks:

Our son Patrick Wood attended Pomfret School on the full four year Peck Scholarship. He was a national merit scholar. He earned perfect SAT’s. He won almost every book award possible. He graduated from Pomfret at the top of his class in 2001, and four years later, graduated from Stanford University with distinction in math.

Yes, Pat was an incredibly brilliant young man. He once said that he knew what it took to get an A. Internally, things just seemed to click and make sense for him. But the best part of him was his humor and his heart. He praised his teachers and mostly his coaches at Pomfret for opening him up to new dimensions of high school, for letting go and trusting himself and his teammates, for seeing how mental support will accomplish physical goals. Unfortunately, that mental support was not enough, and Pat died tragically in 2006.

In the wake of our sadness, the Pomfret and Rectory School response was incalculable. We were quite simply lifted up and pulled along with letters from students and faculty, flowers, food, hugs, tears–all were given constantly and infinitely until the end result was that we are able to stand before you today. The Pomfret and Rectory outpouring was nothing short of a renaissance for our family.

And so it is with deepest gratitude that we now give back to the communities that were so life giving to us. For the first time in the four years of this award, it is our honor and pleasure to give the Patrick Wood Memorial Prize for academic excellence to a Rectory student.

The Patrick Wood Prize has come home.

The recipient is a young man, headed for Pomfret, who closely resembles Pat with superior intellect, humor, and heart. He is a young man, whose passion for excellence was so strong that I worried about him. Homework was pages longer than average. Essays were fastidiously thorough. He devoted himself to each assignment, and he put up with my nagging about writing with power and brevity with a grace that I don’t often see.

But alongside his academic prowess was a humility, humaneness, and good old fashioned hilarity that I hadn’t known since Pat was alive. There is no better student for this award. It is my great privilege to award the Patrick Wood Prize to Daniel Kellaway.

2010-08-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Bob and me with Erik Bertelsen, Director of Pomfret School Admissions, presenting Pat's Award to Daniel Kellaway, who will be entering tenth-grade fall 2010

The Patrick Wood Memorial Prize was begun to honor Pat’s legacy of ability and integrity after he died in 2006. He had attended Pomfret School on the full four-year Peck Scholarship because of his academic achievement at the Pomfret Community School. But due to Pomfret School’s financial constraints, about two years after he won it in 1997, the Scholarship was ended. We wanted to give it back to Pomfret School. We felt strongly that the original parameters should be maintained and that it should be based on merit only. It’s not as large as we would like it to be. It was endowed by the Pomfret Board of Trustees last year and grants $1,000 to a local student matriculating to Pomfret each year. Our hope is that we can raise more for the winners, just as Pat received more, because they so obviously deserve it. They work hard for the success they earn. As a teacher, I see it every day in the classroom, and as Pat’s mom, I know the effort he gave to become valedictorian and get perfect SAT’s. He said he pretty much knew what it took to get an A, and I can say for sure that it took countless hours.

This year, there was no better student for this award. I was lucky to have Daniel in my eighth-grade lit class and in newspaper. He picked up new writing skills as easily as if he had known them all along. I saw him in the day-to-day moments when we all have ups and downs. Not Dan. He shone every moment, enjoyed new lessons, and responded wholeheartedly. He had an unwavering respect for all subject matter and a willingness more common in students twice his age. He deserves Pat’s Award and more. Along with the four previous outstanding winners from area schools, he is the quintessential example of why we started this Award. His fount of knowledge is already overflowing, and he is eager for so much more, but he’s also humble about it. He sees himself as a student, pure and simple, not as “accomplished,” and, of course, that made him all the more qualified. In addition to academic achievement, part of the criteria is character, and all of the previous winners have demonstrated that quality. It’s been nurtured and promoted at Pomfret School, which is why it will be a great new home for Daniel.

Happy Birthday Pat!!!

2009-10-29T01:36:00.000-07:00

Germany 2009

2009-07-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

“Green Grocer” by Tobias (at Dallmayer's in München)

At one point during our two-week stay with Pat’s friends in Germany, we were sitting in a drenching rain at the Seehaus in the Englischer Garten in München, one of Pat and Tobi’s favorite bier gartens. The large green tents, brightened with beer stein chandeliers and strings of beer stein lights, were crammed with people escaping the down pour. We counted a thundering crack about a second after bright lightening. A father on the lake was madly rowing his children to safety. I was sitting nearest the edge of the tent, and Libby tried to shield me with her scarf. We huddled there for an hour or more, unable to move. No one was giving up his seat under the crowded tents until finally the storm dulled to medium strength. We dined on the world’s best beer and cheese. We watched an older couple share an umbrella. “I don’t care what it does,” I said. “We’re here together, and that’s all that matters.” We looked at each other in agreement and toasted “prost.” The moment captured the mood of the trip, the high points of which were nonstop. Most were recaptured in the pictures that follow. Others bear special mention:

My cousin Avery putting me up the night before leaving and getting me to the airport so Bob did not miss his softball game (nobody plays left field like he does). No problem even though she and her family were leaving for Israel the day after.

Joe taking time off from work to meet us at Tegel and waiting an hour for our—actually, my--bag. Libs and Linds know how to travel light.

Joe and Tibor giving us the biggest bedroom in their apartment, which was a half hour walk through the Tiergarten to the Reichstag. A HALF HOUR!

Tibor shepherding us to the VIP section of the Christopher Street parade (mit free drinks und food) and explaining to the Mayor of Berlin how he had once introduced Patrick, and now he was introducing his mother. TO THE MAYOR! DER BÜRGERMEISTER! (More on this, the trip, and other Pat thoughts are in process.)

Joe’s father hosting me in his van, at a Brück horse show, with cheese and three kinds of homemade sausage on top of dark, dense bread.

Tibor rescheduling his singing rehearsal and Steve rushing from work to meet us at the Stanford Center for a few words for and by Pat.

Karen bringing me to watch her ride her lovely dressage horse. Heavy Berlin traffic cut it short, and anybody who rides knows that is not good.

Steve treating us to dinner and then staying up endless hours with Joe and Tibor to translate Pat’s German text messages, the last communications before he died.

Joe and Tibor getting our train tickets to München and then hauling suitcases (well, maybe just mine) to get there on time.

Tobi, surprising us by jumping on the train two stops before München then navigating the U-Bahn to get us to our pension within walking distance of everything München. EVERYTHING!

Tobi, guiding us to everything Patrick for the next nine days. NINE!

Dr. Heidrun Belzner, from BMW, showing us where Pat worked and explaining for several hours why he was “the best intern we ever had.”

Wolf-Dietrich Junghanns, from the Stanford Center, putting me in touch with Heidrun.

Tobi, renting a car and then driving us to his home town of Missen, two hours southwest of München in the Allgåu, the greenest, and most old-lady accessible and cow-covered mountains in the world. Check out my iCow movie, which doesn’t do them justice.

Tobi’s aunt and uncle, preparing the same pork meal as Pat’s even though it wasn’t normally available that day.

Tobi’s Neuschwanstein and hiking plans getting rained out nearly every day.

Tobi’s Neuschwanstein plans, magnificent, even in the rain.

Joe, Tibor, Christian, Steve, Karen, and Tobi, answering our endless questions; enduring our (my) terrible pronunciations; repeating untold directions; protecting, guiding, and hand-holding every step of the way; driving us from and to airports, train stations, rental cars; and being genuinely, overly grateful for the puny little meals we bought. Are these the greatest friends known to mankind?

Libs and Linds hauling my embarrassingly large suitcase and my anchor weighted backpack, and most luxuriously, bringing me breakfast every morning in Bavaria. They graciously tolerated my old-lady presence every step of the way. I could not have made the trip without them.

And most importantly, Woody taking over full-time farm management for two weeks, which involved feeding a horse who throws grain everywhere. TWO WEEKS!

I tried to cut out enough pictures to make them manageable for the blog, but there were just too many good ones. They show the high points better than words. They may look like a travelogue more than revisiting Pat places, but they felt right and fit the mood at the time. Thanks for checking them out on the site I created to accommodate all of them. Of special note are the pictures by Tobi. He’s going for an art degree, and if these pictures are any indication, he has an incredible future in that field. He has the talent, and more importantly, he has the heart. He, and everyone who knew Pat in Germany, set the standard for surviving suicide. They walked hand-in-hand with us through some tears, some laughs, some toasts, and some silence. They gave us Pat’s Germany, as he would have done had he been alive. They extended their friendship to him and gave it to his entire family. It was nothing short of life giving to Libby, Lindsay, and me.

For the Germany 2009 pics, the site is:

file:///Users/lrimer/Dropbox/Public/Germany%202009%20site/Germany_2009/Photos.html

For great cowbell music, check out iCows, the movie.

Continuing Tributes

2009-04-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss in posting some files, so here's is an overdue roundup of "Pat News."

Tobi Bader, a friend from Germany, created a pdf last fall, which all who loved Pat and question suicide should see. It is a searching and artistic triumph. You should be able to click on each of the pictures to enlarge them and read the text. For those who would like the full size pdf, which is even more beautiful, email me at: mlrimer@earthlink.net.

At about the same time as Tobi's "Autumn," Libby designed a t-shirt in honor of her and Pat's birthday, October 29th. Germanophiles like Pat will recognize the background. But if you don't, you'll have to go to Berlin and pose in front of the Reischstag like Pat did, uncomplaining but clearly tired, for his grandparents (my father and Anne) after he'd been up most of the night clubbing. I think Tibor and Joe had something to do with that.

Lib with Pat's shirt

Pat and vorm Reischstag spring 2004 before lunch in the dome with his grandfather and Anne.

Pat had the honor of being memorialized on Helpguide.com, a mental health awareness site created by friends of my father, Mr. and Dr. Robert Siegle. Their daughter Morgan also committed suicide and they have been dedicated ever since to mental health awareness. It's an impressive site with up-to-date research and medical articles. You can visit Pat's memorial at: http://www.helpguide.org/memorials.htm

And finally, in honor of Pat and other students who worry about being different for any reason, I started a Safe Place program (actually, it's more a state of mind) at my school. My friend Nora Robbins designed the poster,

and I addressed the school with remarks, which I'll include shortly. For the most part the response was terrific. Many teachers and students appreciated the point that most gay students are afraid of school because it's still acceptable to discriminate against them and that they should be treated as courteously and respectfully as anyone else no matter what your beliefs.

Pat's mom

“Twenty-Three”

2009-04-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Andrew and DJ at Amoeba, March 12, 2009

Andrew (aka MC Lars) wanted to include the mp3 file along with some of his thoughts in writing it, but Mike Love (creator of this blog) and I were unable to upload it, so here is the link again if you haven't yet heard Pat's song:

http://mclars.com/mp3s/albums/2009%20-%20tgrk/08%20Twenty-Three.mp3

Libby, Lindsay (Lib’s girlfriend), and I had the amazing luck to see Andrew and DJ (another Pat friend from Stanford) perform it at Amoeba Records on Haight St. in San Francisco in March. As sad as we were about Pat, Andrew and DJ were a total lift. Every song was fabulous, even to an aging mother whose penchant for loud music has waned. Not this time. “Post-punk laptop rap” is my new favorite. Check out Andrew’s web site for his tour schedule:

http://mclars.com/news.php

I’d love to see him in Berlin. Pat’s clubs would be a perfect venue.
Most importantly, check out Andrew’s article in the San Francisco Chronicle March 9, 2009. He talks openly about “Twenty-three” and his music in general:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/09/DD8U16B5RI.DTL

Andrew is no lightweight opportunist as the term rap might imply. His version is “hip-hop that’s not afraid to be smart.” If a kid “wants to read Hamlet afterward, then that’s a bonus.”

From hip-hop to Hamlet? It’s true. He makes the connection. Check it out. A movie of the Amoeba performance, which I hope to post, will be forthcoming in May.

Pat's mom

Andrew on “Twenty-Three”

"It was a moving experience to record this track and I still feel sad every time I go back and listen to it. For me it's the end of the second verse that resonates when I listen to the song again, remembering when I saw Pat's room and his freshman yearbook. I wrote and rewrote the song many times over the past year. That I was able to find a way to express how everything made me feel but also be musically engaging was rewarding and has helped me heal... and I hope it will serve the same for others. Pat was an awesome friend and roommate."

"Twenty-three" by MC Lars

2009-02-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Pat People ,

Andrew Nielson (MC Lars), a roommate of Pat's at Stanford, has written a song, which he wanted to share. It's part of his latest album This Gigantic Robot Kills, which has been well reviewed thanks in large part to "Twenty-Three," the song he wrote for Pat. Check out this review, which Andrew sent to me: http://changetherecord.net/2009/01/18/mc-lars-this-gigantic-robot-kills-2/

The album is available on Amazon, but "Twenty-Three" can be downloaded at this link courtesy of Andrew:

http://mclars.com/mp3s/albums/2009%20-%20tgrk/08%20Twenty-Three.mp3

"Twenty-Three" is a lovely tribute, beautifully written and produced. Andrew has dignified the life and death of Pat in an intimate and eloquent way. Please join me in congratulating him for his artistry, and join me also in supporting him by purchasing the album on Amazon.

All my gratitude, Andrew,

Pat's mom

Pat at Stanford

"Twenty-Three"

lyrics by MC Lars

music by James Bourne

I don't sleep, because sleep is the cousin of death

Down the hall, there's a kid that I know

He's kind of quirky so I say hello

He's so sarcastic but he's always right

Working on those problem sets late into the night

Mad magazines sit piled by his bed

A million brilliant thoughts going all through his head

We bike to class in the autumn rain

He tells me that he's fine but I know he's in pain

Pat I miss you dude it's so hard to say goodbye

In Europe last winter you were tired of the lie

Monoxide in the bathroom but the door was locked

We were always there for you, you could have called and talked

I felt guilty and alone and so sick when I discovered

You did it in Berlin, you'd just talked to your mother

I guess it was too much, depression disillusion

Maybe suicide's an answer, but it wasn't the solution

CHORUS:

And I wish that you hadn't done it

Could have won it and moved on from it

And we could have grown old together

But instead you'll always be 23.... 23.

We sat together one night on El Camino

On the bench by the bus stop hiding from El Nino

You told me your secret I just sat there in shock

You couldn't tell your parents, you couldn't break that lock

Cognitive dissonance, trapped in your shell

Depression and regression made your life a living hell

The pain was too intense, the fence too strong to break

So you went to Germany, it was too much to take

You came back broken hearted distracted by the dream

The worlds collided now, college wasn't what it seemed

You went to back to Berlin to find yourself once more

They broke down the door and found you lying on the floor

I took the Amtrak up the coast, your mom met me at the station

I went to see your house and photos of your graduation

We drove to your grave, no tombstone where you lay

Your freshmen yearbook's by your bed and your room's in disarray

CHORUS

(vocal samples recorded spring 2003)

Lars: Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to meet a good friend of mine, this is Patrick Wood!

Pat: What's up Lars?

Lars: What's up Pat?

Pat: How you doing man?

Lars: Good. What do you think of me having my recording equipment take up three quarters of our small room in the Kimball dorm?

Pat: It's no problem man, I love you.

Lars: I love you too Pat.

Pat: Thanks Lars.

Lars: Pat Wood! Hey that's you.

Pat: (Sarcastic laughter)

CHORUS:

And I wish that you hadn't done it

Could have won it and moved on from it

Now we'll never grow old together

But you're in my memory, 23... 23.

Suicide sucks.

Year Three

2009-02-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

~A place for Patrick,

in the city he loved~

Patrick Wood, 1982~2006

On Patrick's bench at the Stanford Center in Berlin.
Photo by Jutta Ley, Winter 2008

Dear Friends and Family of Pat,

Thank you for another year of cards, letters, well-wishes, and heartfelt thoughts. I have reread your Christmas cards and can't help but shake my head at the time you took to connect, especially when it was a connection miles away from a holiday celebration. I am not much farther along in understanding, but I am heartened that you continue to show support for someone no longer here but not gone. Just knowing that the ever-present paradox is shared works miracles. It's as if I handed my life over, and you rebuilt it. I guess that's one lesson with which I've come away: if you are lucky enough to be surrounded by good people, you can survive anything, even (as I anticipate) your own death.

I'll pass on a good quote by Ezra Pound from a steadfast cousin in Alaska. "A poem is a momentary stay against confusion." Meaning is rare and precious, but it does come from the greats who went before. They have endured all and steer with wisdom born of hardship and eloquence. I include your letters and kind deeds in that category. You have astounded with your tributes to Pat, including Andrew Nielson releasing a song he wrote called "Twenty-three;" Libby designing t-shirts to help with her reflections yesterday; Pomfret School awarding $1,000 to incoming freshmen in Pat's name. Last year, two incredibly talented students received it; Tobi creating a stunning pictorial essay of Berlin, which I hope he will not mind me including here :) ; Joe and Tibor sending birthday wishes on the blog; Jutta sending the picture of Pat's snow-covered plaque above; my cousin Karen calling regularly while her own sister was dying of breast cancer; and my cousin Polly starting a Day of Silence, a nationwide recognition that gay students must be silent about their identity. She started it in Pat's memory at her school in Long Island. I'm working on a similar program at my school.

And just when I think the list of kind deeds is finished, I remember that yesterday, as I was writing this note, my dear friend Nora came to say good bye to an old horse who will soon be underground with other equine friends at the top of our fields. At twenty-nine, he is older than Pat would have been. He has seen the comings and goings of our entire family. For most of those years he stationed himself to view the house. Neither dog nor fellow horse dared to obstruct his monitoring. And if he spotted you around feed time, he whinnied to remind you who came first. We had a good cry outside with him in the freezing January wind. We thanked him for the many thrills he had given us--thrills not entirely expected like walking over small trees to scratch his stomach, letting himself out of latched doors to roam and snack freely, finding food in pockets with a muzzle like an opposable thumb. That muzzle is now covered with incurable infection, and when the light in his eye grows dim, we will attempt to open the frozen ground one more time, much like we did for Pat three years ago.

Thank you as always for listening, reading, and writing. Your shared sadness pulls me out of the vacuum into which I descend to think about Pat.

All my love,

Lisette

Published by Pat's Dad in the Woodstock Villager 1~31~09

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2008-10-29T09:34:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday, Pat!!!

Time is passing.... and we are missing you.

The Second Year Without Pat

2008-02-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

Pat and Dad at graduation (2005) and with Lib, Anne, and Dad in San Francisco 2000

Part 1:

Dear friends and family of Pat,

When I last wrote, Pat’s headstone was installed in April, and I was sharing some reflections on his death compared to my father’s. I hope you don’t mind if I revisit some of that territory. It’s hard to separate the two since they were so close in life and now in death. When I was visiting my father and watching him approach his last days, I remember making comparisons between Pat dying alone and my father dying with many people visiting even though he was barely able to sustain conversation longer than two or three sentences. There were awkward silences between his visiting friends and us because although we were trying to share my dad’s last days, he was, in reality, going it alone. The rest of us had the luxury of functioning. My dad did not. He could not drive, read, walk, or get to the bathroom without help. Most painful to him, a man who held the distinction of being UCLA’s first gastroenterologist in residence, a man who succeeded by the power of his intelligence, was that he could not think. The medication that barely kept pace with his pain, dulled his entire thought process. It prevented normal communication, but it did not spare him the clumsy blunders which resulted. Friends of thirty years ended up staring at the floor while trying to find words. Most conversations were light, and arriving at the moment of final good-byes was often not possible.

The last day I saw him, almost a year to the day after Pat died, I too, made light of his emotional good-bye. I was advised by the hospice doctor that he would still be alive by the time I could return. “I’ll be back, Dad,” I said, interrupting a long hug. It was February 4th. I would visit Lib in San Francisco and return to Connecticut on the 6th. As he quickly deteriorated, I tried to come back, but it was too late. He stopped eating about a week later. The medication was increased to extreme levels. By the morning of the 16th, he became agitated, uncomfortable. The hospice nurse and doctor were called. My stepmother, Anne, found herself in the impossible position of trying to know when to call, when to increase the meds, in other words, how to make life and death decisions. The pressure was exhausting. She comforted my father with every fiber of her being, stayed on top of his care better than anyone, and now it was ending. All her nursing, tending, listening, and trying was about to be over, and it wasn’t going as well as it should. My dad was clearly uncomfortable, agitated, and it took about eight hours to again increase the morphine so that he could die in peace. It was all he had asked, and it was the one thing that did not go according to plan. As much as they had prepared for that moment (and believe me, no human beings on the face of the earth could have planned better), even with every conceivable detail decided--the living trust, the cremation, the funeral, the reception including the jazz band he wanted, the post reception, the new bank accounts, who would help Anne--in spite of an entire year confronting every contingency, his extreme pain the last 24 hours could not be anticipated. It was not as smooth as they wanted.

Is there such a thing as a clean death?

It was a lonely trail for Dad in spite of the many people saying good-bye. We could not really share his burden. We could only watch how he did it, and hope that we ourselves didn’t have to face it soon. Call it courage. Call it surrender. We were spared, and he was not. The life force is fickle. It gives you one body, and when that one wears out, it’s busy creating new ones, looking elsewhere, being distracted from the life that’s ending by the billions of remaining lives. How can we savor the importance of one individual with so much competition? Maybe we should model a northern European society I recently heard about on NPR. It was said to be relatively happy, in part, because it reserved 20 minutes every day to think about the dead. I found that even as my father was slipping away, life was interrupting. I needed to get more plane tickets, get a room, plan a slide show, buy some black clothes that fit, get a substitute at school, and on and on. Dad was getting lost in all the preparation for Dad.

The struggle to think purely of the ones who aren’t here, to simply remember them is the present battle. His battle, Pat’s battle, and more recently, my cousin Stephanie in Cornwall, England, who is in the final stages of breast cancer, has given way to me, to us, to fight on our own. And it is an internal struggle in which I fail every day.

Part 2: Pat's Grave Stone

2008-02-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

Dad’s reception at the Los Angeles Country Club with me (second from left and cousin Chris, brother Doug, cousin Skip, Karen, Ned, and Marina, and brother Doug.

After my dad’s funeral, March 3, 2007, came a series of numbing responsibilities. Pat’s head stone, decided after much agonizing, arrived at South Cemetery in Pomfret, barely a mile from our home. We had struggled with every part of it because none of it would ever be right. But after searching for shapes, designs, symbols, and inscriptions in Germany, through Steve and Ryan, at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at local cemeteries, we arrived at a classical style with a German epitaph. It was as good as we could make it, and in spite of the wrongness of the entire exercise, we felt relieved. It was over. We had made a place for Pat, and although going there is hardly satisfying, his grave is worthy and respectable. Bob goes more than any of us. He became a member of the Cemetery Board and maintains the grounds. Last year he raked many years worth of leaves and repaired the stone wall behind Pat’s head. Next year he will complete a new road so that hearses and visitors can drive through the new section, where Pat lies. The only part of Pat’s funeral that displeased Bob was that the hearse backed in to get Pat’s casket close enough to the grave site. It wasn’t the way it should have been done, he said later.

The epitaph, loved by Pat, comes from the German poet Friederich Rückert (1788-1866) and was set to music by Gustav Mahler in 1902.
It was translated by Pat’s good friend Steve in Berlin:

Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!

And I rest in a quiet realm.
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song.

It comes from a series of five songs, the last two of which I’m including because they so well capture the beauty, depth, and longing of Pat’s soul.

4. “I am Lost to the World”

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world’s tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!

5. “At Midnight”

At midnight
I awoke
and gazed up to heaven;
No star in the entire mass
did smile down at me
at midnight.

At midnight
I projected my thoughts
out past the dark barriers.
No thought of light
brought me comfort
at midnight.

At midnight
I paid close attention
to the beating of my heart;
One single pulse of agony
flared up
at midnight.

At midnight
I fought the battle,
o Mankind, of your suffering;
I could not decide it
with my strength
at midnight.

At midnight
I surrendered my strength
into your hands!
Lord! over death and life
You keep watch
at midnight!

The lyre is for Pat’s love of music, the olive branches for his wisdom,
and the Greek style for his classicism.

Part 3: The Letter to President Hennessey

2008-02-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

I had not gone to Pat when he was so ill. I would not make the same mistake with my father. I forced myself to put Pat aside so I could be with my father on three separate trips to Santa Monica the second year after Pat’s death. While there, long talks with my brothers and Dad influenced me greatly. They put the responsibility squarely on Pat. I was relieved of some guilt but not convinced. After my dad’s funeral, I revisited where I left off before he became so ill. I allowed myself to retrace my roll, Pat’s participation, and the influence of his friends. Who was in the best position to understand him? The mental finger pointed back at me. I had had the most complete picture. It was an open and shut case. I knew he wasn’t happy, and I didn’t go to him. The problem then was what to do with that information. No answer presented itself.

Then Virginia Tech happened. It was eerily similar. The questions I had asked myself for over a year were now constantly on the news. Why didn’t anyone see it coming? Why didn’t the school do more? How should they handle depressed students on campus? It was almost entertaining to watch them struggle, and not surprisingly, they didn’t come up with much except that Seung-Hui Cho’s mental record was over looked when he bought the gun.

Not a factor in Pat’s case.

So what were the factors?

About the same time that I refocused on them after my dad’s funeral, Lauren Schneider sent me Stanford president John Hennessey’s open letter proclaiming a reassessment of psychological services on campus. He also asked that everyone be more aware, more alert for signs that someone needs help.

Finally, in the aftermath of the worst mass murder ever on a college campus, the decades old student right to privacy, so guarded by college administrations, was beginning to crack. Colleges now felt a responsibility to protect their student bodies over the rights of an individual. They needed to know, and communicate when students became a danger to themselves and others.

But along with that, they kept a wary eye on when this communication was a violation of privacy, including doctor-patient privilege. And then what action they would take? Wouldn’t restrictions against the mentally ill be considered discrimination, especially if no crime had yet been committed? Would restraining orders be issued against suspected murderer-suicides?

As illusive as these answers were, Cho’s incomprehensible aggression caused a paradigm shift in the hands-off policy imposed by schools and tolerated by parents because of the Buckley Amendment in 1974, which proclaimed our newly emancipated college students’ privacy inviolate. No matter what. During Pat and Lib’s four years at Stanford and the University of Vermont, for example, we were denied information on applications and transcripts. We could not receive grades or tuition bills until they signed waivers. We couldn’t find out the amount of Libby’s bills from the UVM Health Center. They couldn’t acknowledge that she was a patient (Well, let’s say hypothetically, I told the receptionist, if she were a patient, and her doctor wanted to get paid, he would need to tell me the amount. No problem, she said, and promptly gave me the figure). We couldn’t help with roommate problems or dormitory overcrowding. At UVM Libby was stashed with two others in a room meant for two, and I do mean stashed. She could hardly move or find peace and quiet. By the second semester, both roommates had dropped out and Lib moved to another double. The best answer from the school was a $700 refund, the difference in cost between a double and a triple.

But now, after Cho, media discussion shifted the balance of rights toward parents. Maybe we couldn’t get tuition bills (until they were past due because Pat and Lib forgot to mail them), but we weren’t going to tolerate unsafe campuses. I decided to pass on a few of these thoughts to Dr. Hennessey. I wrote him an open letter, which James Hohmann, Editor in Chief of the Stanford Daily, generously published in its entirety on May 14, 2007. I include the link for Dr. Hennessey’s deliberation:

http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/5/4/opedHennessyReflectsOnTragedy

and then my letter and the responses, some of which were highly critical, accusing me of “nannyism”:

file:///Users/Pat/letter%20to%20Hennessey/opedAnOpenLetterToPresidentHennessy.html

Part 4: After the Letter

2008-02-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

To his credit, Dr. Hennessey sent a letter of condolence in response. He agreed that even the most capable students could be victims of suicide, but he did not address the specifics of my letter. It appeared that, yes, although Stanford and the Ivies have better psychological services compared to public colleges (according to my therapist who teaches a class in grief at UConn) Stanford would not improve their follow-up of students abroad.
Thankfully, that was not the reaction of the Stanford Center in Berlin. When Libby and I visited Karen, the director, the following July, she told me that Pat was beginning to change their policies. Where they had once prohibited communication of any personal issues between Palo Alto and Berlin, they were now reconsidering. In fact, all of Stanford’s study abroad programs were leaving the door open. They, like us, were trying to learn, to improve, to gain insight, to prevent another Patrick or Cho, and most recently, Kazmierczak from ever happening again.

Part 5: Pat's Scholarship

2008-02-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

While we were concentrating on the headstone, Pomfret School chose a recipient for Pat’s Scholarship and designed a silver bowl and plaque. By June 2007, we had received about $25,000 in donations (with much thanks to my father). It was enough to award a $500 prize to a very deserving young lady named Hannah Leo from St. Mary’s School in Putnam, Connecticut. She would be entering ninth grade in the fall, and the Pomfret admissions office felt she was outstanding, much like Pat. She had maintained the highest grade point average in her class and was of exceptional character. She was a go-getter, and the minute we presented the award at her graduation ceremony, we knew she was the right choice--beautiful, focused, and sharp-eyed. Bob gave a magnificent speech. Honestly, I don’t think I was the only one crying. The irony of being the constant recipient of these awards to being the one giving them was too stark. I kept asking myself, How did this happen? But I could not make the connection from one rarity to another. It was too big. I found myself standing by the alter, looking down, while Bob read his remarks, another eulogy actually. I was grateful that I did not have to function as well as he. When Hannah stepped forward, I shook her hand, looked into her warm dark eyes and said congratulations, Honey.

We were passing on the mantel that Pat had worn his whole life, a mantel in which we had wrapped ourselves along with him. We let the glory rub off on us, and now we were giving it up. Instead of receiving, we were taking it off, humbled at how small we felt without Pat’s greatness. I tried to find Hannah after the ceremony to explain some of that to her, but she had disappeared with her friends. We packed up our empty gift bags, which had carried the silver bowl for Hannah and the plaque for St. Mary’s School, and found the car. Hannah’s mother later wrote me a loving poem, and Hannah has already had her picture in the paper for a science project. Her first semester, she received straight A’s and did “some of the best work in the entire freshman class” according to her mother. She was the perfect choice. But her mother has not allowed herself to be proud without worry. She struggled with the decision to let Hannah go on a chorus trip to Japan:

“It's probably one of the hardest things I have had to decide as my co-worker in the early 90's lost her HS aged daughter on a terrorist plane bombing over Lockerby Scotland. Her daughter was returning from a HS trip w/her classmates from Central MA when the plane imploded in mid air. I watched her grief for years and now I am faced w/a decision that
frankly scares me to death.”

She has allowed herself to contemplate what if, a reality that she knows exists. It’s no preparation. I went through the same what if. It’s a judgment that I can guarantee will haunt every parent who loses a child.

Patrick D. Wood '01 Memorial Prize
Established in Memory of Patrick D. Wood,
Pomfret School Class of 2001, who was a
Top Scholar, Accomplished Musician, and
Outstanding Member of the Pomfret School Community

Awarded to the Top 8th Grade Student From
Windham County Matriculating at
Pomfret School

Bob’s presentation remarks
June 9, 2007

Following the loss of our son Patrick to a sudden and severe episode of depression in Berlin, Germany in January 2006, and after his family had attained a measure of composure, we--Pat’s mom Lisette, here with me this PM, his twin sister Libby, and his older brother Colin-- decided to try to honor his memory in an appropriate manner. To this end, we approached Pomfret School with our intention, and to our immense gratitude the school willingly assented to help us to establish a merit award in his name to go to a deserving Windham County elementary school student accepted for attendance at the School. This year’s prize of a silver bowl and cash prize to that student, and a plaque to St. Mary’s School, is the first presentation and it will go to a local student whose academic performance at St. Mary’s and in standardized testing, as well as in extra-curricula activities, upholds the rigorous study, self-discipline, curiosity and enthusiasm for learning so evident in Patrick. Before presenting the award, allow me to tell you just a little about him.

Pat graduated from Pomfret Community School in 1997, was awarded the full four year Peck Scholarship to Pomfret School, and became a member of the class of 2001, where upon graduation he was honored by being named first in class. He was awarded numerous other academic prizes during his four years there, as well. Besides excelling in the classroom, Pat was a three-time winner of the Ct State Music Teachers’ classical piano competitions when at Pomfret, while also participating in the interscholastic sports of cross-country, crew, and lacrosse. Upon graduation, he attended Stanford University, graduating in 2005 with distinction in mathematics, and had been accepted into Stanford’s prestigious Graduate School of Computer Science for the 2006 fall term.

All in all, not a bad resume for a country kid from Windham County. It demonstrates that we have the educational resources here to prepare our young people for great things. Obviously, St. Mary’s School has prepared this year’s winner, and we commend it. Now, let me get to the business at hand and present the two--part awards: first is to the student chosen by Pomfret School’s admission office, and the second to St. Mary’s.

To Patrick’s Loving Family,

We can’t comprehend just how sad you must feel 
For the loss of someone you love.
 This sorrowful time must still feel unreal 
While you’re looking for strength from above.
Our hope, from our hearts, that your pain will decrease, 
That your spirits will gain strength again, 
And we pray that your faith will create inner peace 
And that God will send blessings…Amen

-The Leo family

Part 6: Pat's Obituary in the Longy Music School Newsletter

2008-02-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

Spring 2007

Pat’s piano teacher at Longy Music School in Cambridge, MA was a sensitive, caring woman named Deborah Beers, who taught the whole Pat. Many nights before she and Pat were to play concertos for four hands in Longy’s Pickman Concert Hall, I would ask her advice on keeping Pat calm. He was nervous that wrong notes would ruin the performance and that pieces could vary in uncontrollable ways. That’s the beauty of it, she would reassure him. He trusted her musical judgment and plunged in. Longy was a bigger venue than Pomfret Center, and the caliber of audience greater than adoring parents. She guided him expertly, letting him beg off most competitions because they brought too much pressure. He did find himself in chamber master classes and the end of semester recitals. By the end of his third year there, he had conquered his nerves and even had fun. A friend who used to play with him there wrote that they had purposely played badly at an “evaluation,” just to get a reaction. It worked, and they laughed like crazy afterward. The judges had made the mistake of taking them seriously. They obviously didn’t know Pat.

Because Debbie was such a soul mate, she waited a polite amount of time for me to send her the obituary information, and then took it upon herself to enter her own. I’m not sure why I didn’t help her. I remember my brain feeling very full and touchous about the Pat projects I undertook that spring. The thought of preparing one more obituary, which would force me to face him was too much, but then the thought of not doing it was even worse.

Part 7: Return to Berlin

2008-02-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

Lib taking a picture of Pat’s last apartment, the lower balcony, on Nesstorstrasse in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, a block away from Ryan and Steve.

Patrick’s Garden, where he and Libby used to hide from their parents

Summer 2007 brought a time to reflect and a time to plan. Within a year, almost to the day, I had lost both Pat and my Dad. School was over. I could return to the many condolences, which should have been answered, and the journal entries, which should have been written. In reality, I did neither. Libby and I were going back to Berlin. We had to go. We needed to be with Pat, and we both felt that he was there more than anywhere else. We needed to learn about what he loved, the schools, the libraries, the cafés, the clubs, the language, the opera house, the philharmonic, and most importantly, the people. We needed to know the people he loved and who loved him back. And we did, as much as possible, in the ten days we were there, largely because of the generosity of Pat’s friend Christian Krüger. He gave us his newly renovated apartment, in the Prinzelauer or northeast section of Berlin. Christian was a doting host in spite of a demanding job with Germany’s state department and exams looming. Our first night, he showed us the quiet but busy neighborhood, including the best places to eat, how to get on the internet, where to buy groceries, get on the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, get phone cards, and buy train tickets. When we finally got to bed around midnight, he was still up, doing laundry, and then going to his other apartment across town, from where he would leave at 7:00 AM for Vienna for a week. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I do this all the time.” He convinced us by saying that he had already hosted thirty-five guests that year. We marveled at his energy but were too tired to help him.

The next morning, long after he was on a plane, we found a welcome note, guide books, two maps of Berlin (one of which was so detailed that we could find the smallest streets), as many bottles of wine as we could possibly drink, and four bars of chocolate. We felt a warm sensation that had nothing to do with the sun shining outside or the warm breezes floating through the open and unscreened windows. We were home. Pat’s home. The fear of a strange city, a foreign language, new friends, receded. It was time to learn about Pat’s world.

The rest that follows is my thank you letter for that trip. As soon as Libby and I returned to Connecticut, I wrote it in a mad rush, eager to recap our renewed love of Pat’s Germany. I backed up my hard drive right after the first draft, and about five minutes later, it crashed, just like my techie friend warned it could. By the time I got a new one and returned to those reflections, school started, and I put the blinders on to keep pace with my fast-thinking chargelings. If you’ve been in a middle school lately, there is no need to explain. Let’s just say that I’m back in eighth-grade and saying words like cool and awesome more than normal. My kids are great and don’t mind my reminisces about Pat or the occasional tears. In fact, I think they welcome the honesty because they listen silently, and then they give me a hug.

Before I include that letter, I wanted to mention a few small items to those who loved Pat. One is that we started a garden at home in his memory. It began with a yew tree, which Bob planted because it is often found in cemeteries. It is part of the setting outside the Capulet vault where Romeo and Juliet kill themselves, a play which Pat read in eighth-grade and recommended to me for my own literature class. I’ve taught it every year since, and when I returned to school the April after Pat died, I taught it again. My students rejected the idea that lovers would kill themselves, but I told them it happens, and they stared back at me knowingly.

We added a stone bench and a weeping willow given by my cousins Avery, Ned, and Polly, and their mother, my Aunt Beverly, who loved Pat and who is the wisest woman I know. I added a memorial plaque, donated by a friend, who remembered when I was hugely pregnant with Pat and Lib. The picture I’m including does not show the yew, which was eaten by deer and now has to live in an unattractive wire cage. As soon as it’s presentable, I’ll take another picture and give you an update.

Another is that we are donating a memorial bench for Pat to the Pomfret Library. It will sit to the left of the entrance, in front of green bushes, and be so close to the road that you might be able to read the inscription from your car if you slow down.

Part 8: Thank You to Pat's German Family

2008-02-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

Pat in Berlin 2005

Lib, Christian, and Joe on the way to Schloss Rheinsberg

Lib and Tobi in his medieval Lüneburg

Libby and I received an amazing gift on our return to Berlin in July. We were basically adopted by what I call Pat's German family. We were ferried to and from the airport, housed in a roomy apartment, chauffeured to Pat's favorite places, wined, dined, escorted, and generally tutored in all things Patrick and German for ten days. The result is that Pat's family has now become ours.
Return to Berlin
July 7, 2007

Dear German family and Pat People everywhere,

Libby and I re-entered the real world after a magical trip to Berlin--she to her apartment-and-graphic-arts-job search in San Francisco and I to my household chores. Bob took care of everything while we were away, including horses, dogs, cows, and one ancient lone chicken, so now it's our turn to help out. We came back in good repair thanks to walking much of Berlin and Paris, but mostly thanks to the five flights of stairs to Christian's apartment. Around the fourth floor, I really had to push myself, but that pushing made me five pounds lighter when I returned. Thank you, Christian, for the only weight loss plan that's ever worked for me. Now all I have to do is get my weeding and pitchfork arm back in shape.

It's hard to thank everyone who made the trip such a success. I know each of you said that our being there helped you as well. I think we were all curious about each other. We wanted to know where Pat came from. What was his family like? What were his friends like? With whom did he work? What was the school like? We wanted to know more about him because we are still trying to understand him. Were there any clues within his family, friends, school, or colleagues? Or maybe in the places he frequented--his apartments, job, restaurants, clubs, sightseeing attractions, friends' apartments? For me, the answer is yes. The trip confirmed what we already learned right after he died. Everything Pat could have wanted was there: loving friends, magnificent culture, a welcoming school, and highly regarded work place. The trip confirmed the evidence that I am gathering: Pat was painfully, terminally ill.

When I first began to search for Pat, I was looking for clues. What happened to him that would explain such an irreversible act? Was he rejected by his friends? Was he broke? Was he evicted? Was he failing at work? At school? At anything? We know that he was rejected by Oli, but does this alone explain his action? I think we know the answer, and if we don’t, we have a better idea since our trip. There is no explanation other than the fact that depression is a lethal disease, and it killed the least likely victim we could have imagined.

We shared a wonderful ten days and many conversations. We remembered the good and the bad but mostly the good because as Karen said, "He had a good life here." Our family never doubted that, but we needed to see it first hand. We needed to judge for ourselves the kind of people and places Pat knew, and we confirmed that those people and places were the finest on the planet. Although I do not absolve myself, I am a little closer to the premise that Pat's demise was not about me or us. Yes, we all could and should have done more, but in the final analysis, it was not the rejection that killed him. It was his level of frustration, his aggravation, driven out of proportion by a cancer of emotion. If you look at a picture of a severely depressed brain, as I have done with the help of my doctor, you will see a shrunken hypocampus, the area where emotion resides. Instead of robust tissue, the outline is flatter and smaller because stress has hindered nerve regeneration and damaged nerves have caused stress. The cycle feeds on itself, worsening and depleting with each depressive “episode.” According to Peter Kramer, whose book Against Depression explains the recently discovered anatomy of depression:

Chronic stress leads to the production of stress hormones. Stress hormones damage hippocampal (and other) brain cells, isolating them and pushing them to the brink of destruction. Further stressors push the cells over the edge. As damage progresses, feedback systems fail. Even minor adversity then causes the overproduction of stress hormones. What would otherwise be limited injuries extend, in the presence of stress hormones, into substantial brain damage. The hormones also dampen repair and regeneration functions, so that temporary injuries become permanent (p. 121)

Stated more simply, “Depression is characterized by frank abnormalities in the nervous system” (p.121).

While I was thinking Pat was better because he had been treated, statistics show exactly the opposite. Failed suicides are actually more likely to be completed, not less. This is where I went wrong. This is what I didn’t know. But these trends still repulse me. Pat was not a statistic. He was unique and soaring as the music he played. He defied quantification. If I knew everything then that I know now, I’m not sure it would have helped. I put him on a pedestal. He was above me, surely not susceptible to common vagaries…

Pat's good friend and roommate Andrew Nielson once told me, "He was his own man." I am still fighting to believe that. It's difficult to see him outside of my conversations with him. I cannot disconnect him from myself, but those words came back to me many times in Berlin. We saw evidence over and over that he was functioning and independent. Andrew Tompkins told us that, "He knew a lot of people,” that in Berlin's nightlife (by that I mean all night), he was constantly greeting people. He had no shortage of friends and people who liked being with him.

Dr. Kuemmlee, the director of Pat's division at Siemens, told us that they didn't realize anything was wrong because he had a good social life. He was out at night with friends. After he died, Dr. Kuemmlee met with his colleagues and also the medical staff at Siemens to find out what they could have done better and to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. They could arrive at nothing to help them in the future. They said he showed no indication that he was lonely or depressed, signs that would have prompted them to do more. They, like me, have come to the hard realization that depression operates outside the realm of logic or reality. It strikes even the most successful indiscriminately. I did not understand this before Pat and neither did Siemens. If nothing else, at least our meeting, accompanied by Joe and Tibor on the day of our departure, exposed this discovery: depression is a disease of the brain. It's like cancer only without the painkillers that enable terminal cancer patients to endure. During the last few weeks before my father's death in February, he was taking such high levels of OxyContin that he could barely concentrate. Pat needed medical intervention. Yet the very ability to seek that intervention was, itself, under siege and therefore inoperable.

Our meeting with Dr. Kuemmlee at Siemens was one of many important revelations. What did all of the other "Pat People" in Germany show us? Their magnanimous support and generous time. I often said that I didn't know what to expect when we got there. We had a few meetings lined up, but I didn't know how it would really play out. It was a bad time of year for almost everybody. Karen was away most of the ten days we were there and returned with a bad back and a calendar full of doctors' appointments. Jutta was in the tail end of a move after 18 years in the same apartment and now had bronchitis; plus she was getting her daughter ready for camp in Sweden. Christian was leaving for a week in Vienna the day after we arrived. Tobi was preparing for exams. Ryan and Steve were undertaking the most complicated move ever. Two years' worth of treasurers had to be sorted into four, maybe more, piles at least two of which were limited by weight. Joe and Tibor had no unusual constraints, just the constant classes and jobs balancing act. Andrew was moving back to the states to begin his doctorate and more immediately, contemplating the small matter of a major paper due. He had been researching social movements in Germany. Ask him anything about modern history in Germany and he'll fascinate you, but the actual writing of the paper is, "one of those difficult questions."

Into these already frothing lives we arrived and were made to feel as though everyone couldn't wait to see us. Karen managed to pull off a miracle of scheduling and take Lib and me to see her horse perform haute école dressage and then drive through Potsdamm on the way to a doctor's appointment. She limped back to the Stanford Center on crutches in time for Pat's bench and plaque dedication. Jutta could barely talk for all her coughing but had dinner with us and hosted me at her new apartment. Ryan and Steve broke away from their upheaval to have dinner, and take us on another Pat Tour. And this was preceded by the initial task of picking up two exhausted travelers at Tegel, cramming their embarrassingly oversized suitcases into Ryan's normal sized car, and then lugging those suitcases up the five flights of stairs I mentioned in the beginning. We will always owe you for that, Steve. Tobi hosted us for a full day in his pristine medieval town of Lüneberg, 2 1/2 hours north by train from Berlin. We were transformed by his gentle conversation, marathon listening, and his unblemished village, where the houses and streets sag from underground salt mining during the middle ages. If you haven't seen it, you are in for a treat. You can stop at Malzer, the same ancient and lovely restaurant where Tobi brought Pat for dinner, and you can sit at their table, just like we did thanks to Tobi's reservation.

In the beginning of the trip, along with Steve, Christian had the duty of acclimating his non-German speaking houseguests. Lib and I were exhausted from the trip, partly because we missed the connection in Paris (they don't let you get on the plane even if it's five minutes to takeoff), but also because we don't sleep well on planes. We made up for it immediately after Steve delivered us and woke up to get our first in-service with Christian. He showed us the apartment, madly cleaning, folding laundry, and making beds along the way. He even showed me how to put on the quilt covers which are less common here but which Pat preferred and also had in his apartment. He then walked us to a good Thai restaurant next to the Internet café, which he used to expertly track down train tickets far enough in advance to get major discounts. We met him back at his apartment, tickets purchased and madly packing for Vienna while on the phone. He did not escape to his other apartment until 1:00 AM even though his flight to Vienna left six hours later. After thanking him profusely, he said it's no problem. He had hosted 35 people already that year.

Joe and Tibor gently commandeered us toward the end of the trip. Their Pat Day, also known as "The Project," began with brunch at Berio's, Pat's favorite restaurant, at the same table where they first met him. The story goes that one of them, Tibor I think, noticed Pat eating breakfast around 5:00 in the afternoon in the spring of '04 while reading a guide book (probably the one I gave him for Christmas that year). He offered to help him learn about Berlin, and a friendship began. Berio's was key. Even though other restaurants had better buffets, food was not the criteria. That day, every event revolved around Pat.

Our Champaign brunch was followed by an air-conditioned ride to Rheinsberg about an hour north. Air-conditioning is not common in Germany, so we reveled in Joe and Tibor's VW until we got to our destination--Frederick the Great's castle. In addition to rich artifacts, it housed a museum of Kurt Tulcholsky, Pat's favorite poet the last six months of his life. Ryan and Steve had taken him there for his twenty-third birthday, October 29, 2005. Five of us, Libby, Christian, Joe, Tibor, and I wandered around the grounds, bought tickets, and headed for the Tulcholsky exhibit. We were greeted by a docent who handed out strips of paper with a Tulcholsky poem on it, the same poem with which Pat signed his emails and which I include to impart the same epiphany we felt at discovering the source of his inspiration. Pat must have gotten the same slip of paper when he came for his birthday.

Und immer sind da Spuren,
und immer ist einer dagewesen,
und immer ist einer noch höher geklettert
als du es je gekonnt hast, noch viel höher.
Das darf dich nicht entmutigen.
Klettere, steige, steige.
Aber es gibt keine Spitze.
Und es gibt keinen Neuschnee.

Yet always there are traces,
and always somebody else was there,
and always somebody climbed even higher than you ever could, much higher.
Let that not discourage you.
Ascend, climb, climb.
Yet there is no peak. And there is no untrodden snow.

Kurt Tucholsky (aka Kaspar Hauser)
“The World Stage” April 7,1931. Vol. 14. p. 515. (Rowohlt Publisher)

The Schloss Rheinsberg audio tour was followed by ice coffee at the Tulcholsky Café, an underwhelming little building, preparing for some equally underwhelming kareoke music. But it quenched our thirst until we got back to Berlin. We had dinner at Pat's favorite Indian restaurant even though other Indian restaurants had since become better, according to Joe and Tibor. Nevertheless, we went for authenticity, and authentic is what we got. On the way, Joe and Tibor described one of the regulars of the restaurant, a wizened, older gentlemen who worked on mathematical formulas, which he hoped, would someday quantify social movements. He brought bulging bags of papers to which he referred while he wrote at his table. The curious thing about him was that his name was Einstein and he looked like him as well. Most importantly to me, he had been at the cafe when Pat came with Joe and Tibor. They were really hoping he would be there that night. We sat at the same table, which they had shared with Pat, but no Einstein look-alike was there. We ordered the same drink as Pat, a frothy unique-to-Indian-restaurants milk shake, which could be served either sweet or salty. Sweet got my vote, along with the puréed mango that was optional.

When we were well into reminiscing, along came Einstein to his usual table next to ours. He spoke easily about his project, mostly in German but some in English. I asked if he knew why we were here and proceeded to tell him. He nodded his head in understanding, said a few more pleasantries, and then gathered his bags. He hung them, like sacks of grain, off the back of his bike, and rode out of sight. He could have been mistaken for a bag lady, his load was so great, but there was one difference. He had an email address, which he shared with us before he left.

Such was the magic of that day. It seemed as if Joe and Tibor had announced a re-creation of a day in the life of Patrick, and everyone showed up on cue, including the mysterious Einstein, who, like Pat, lived in a world of ideas. Everyone came on stage to show us what Pat would have seen and heard. But the night wasn't over. Actually, "The Project" was just heating up. The dinner was followed by a stop at a sort of gay help social center near the restaurant which had a bulletin board with pictures and notices. Someone had placed Pat’s Siemens picture on it, the one that Joe and Tibor had published in Siegasseule, Berlin’s gay scene magazine. We could barely see it through the closed blinds, but we will return, someday, when the center is open and hopefully find out who admired him enough to publicly display his picture. Joe and Tibor did not know, but they wanted us to see it as one more example of Pat’s extended Berlin following.

We drove in silence contemplating the extent that others reached out. It was a small gesture, but it was on the heels of an already full day of learning about Pat’s life. It added to the mystery. In addition to the constant attention by Pat’s friends, there were still others out there, who we might never know, others who had such a friendship that they honored him in places we had yet to see. And then I realized, as finite as his life was, I would never know all of it.

We drove to Joe and Tibor's apartment where Pat had visited many times. They even had pictures of him there, which I had not yet seen. They showed us a DVD of a hilarious British comedy called Little Britain, which Pat had seen from the same couch where we sat. Full of off-color, outrageous humor, it was vintage Pat. A new comedy series. What could be better? We were still learning from him.

To my astonishment, it was 1:00 AM already. Perfect for clubbing. Café Moskau would be hitting full throttle. The night was still warm and inside was even warmer. We breezed past the front desk. Tibor had put us on the guest list. That meant no 10 euros per person charge. Remember, this is the same Tibor who got Pat back stage after a Blue Man Group concert, where food and schmoozing lasted into the next day. He is a master at free clubbing. According to Tobi, Tibor could get anybody in anywhere. It was as if he could open his jacket and display rows of tickets like a black market watch dealer. Tonight it was our turn to benefit. We walked up the stairs, I think the same on which Pat had sprained his ankle after he first arrived in April 2004. The music, considered moderately heavy on this level, throbbed, with video in the background and people dancing. We eased our way through the crowd past a bar and into a courtyard where cooler night air surrounded a relaxed crowed. It was one of the few places where men didn't look at women. And why should they when men like the one seated next to us dressed up more elegantly anyway? This striking beauty with a slightly deeper laugh was known for her shows, which we didn't get to see. That's even later, Tibor said. Beyond my endurance. Too bad. I'm sure it would have been hilarious. I could sense it from the crowd who were mostly there to yak. Everybody who knew anything about nightlife was there. This was the gay party for that night. Instead of having designated bars (like in Ft. Lauderdale, where I grew up, in the 60's. Remember the Student Prince on the beach?), Berlin has designated nights. The gay scene travels from club to club on different days of the week. Tonight it was Cafe Moskau, appropriately named for its location on Karl Marx Allee in East Berlin. Other nights it was Schwusz, another favorite of Pat's, next to the Schwules or Gay Museum in the Nollendorfplatz section of Berlin. We met Andrew there for a heart-to-heart dinner at the same table where he had dined with Pat. He told us he had considered Pat to be his best friend. He only knew him for six months but felt like it was longer and called him first whenever he went out. They met often. They had the same kind of humor--self-effacing and quirky--and Andrew was stunned over his death. Only weeks before, he had gotten a job lead for Pat. He couldn't understand. Pat seemed to be forward thinking, on a surge, and his death was inconceivable. Tears were shed that night. I told him Pat was lucky to have known him, and now, so were we. I paid for our bill after dinner at Schwusz, glanced at the receipt, laughed out loud, and imagined Pat doing the same. It was more vintage Pat humor. At the bottom, after inexpensive charges for the three of us, it said “GUTEN SEX & BYE BYE.”

Back to Café Moskau. We hung around the open courtyard, watching the crowd of mostly men. Gay women, Tibor said, are way in the minority at these "parties." But they blended innocuously that night with a mostly 20's looking crowd who were chatting and smoking, much like I used to do at college. From what I could tell, not much had changed in 30 years. But I had to hold that thought because the next move was to go downstairs to the "muscle" room, the lower level where music was louder and the crowd sweatier. Definitely a few body builders down here, but, again, nothing more than what I saw on Ft. Lauderdale beaches. The music thumped, almost forcing me to thump with it, but lest I make a fool of myself, being the only 59-year-old mother there, I watched in silence. Well, not exactly silence. More like without talking because the music was too loud anyway. Unexpectedly, the deafening beat gave me a chance to think, to imagine Pat, to picture him bouncing around, yakking, sparkling as my therapist likes to say. And all I could imagine was that he must have had a blast.

Our ten days came to a close, fittingly, with a tribute to Pat at the Stanford Center in front of his tree to dedicate his bench and plaque. Ten or twelve of us gathered for a few words and moment of silence. Libby, the ever-faithful cinematographer, tried to capture the scene and the sounds with a movie camera, but may have been drowned out with the ambient traffic noise. I spoke above it as best I could and Karen read her lovely reflections on Pat and the location of his memorial. The Stanford Center in Berlin is an idyllic home away from home for students. It's true that they work madly, especially if they take Karen's course on German theater (Pat bowed out so he wouldn't have to hover over keyboards after clubbing). But there is an atmosphere of soft touches, which is best exemplified by Jutta's story of Pat registering with police as all students are required to do in Germany. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jutta, but I remember you describing how you explained to Pat what to do, and he was fine about it. His German was good enough, and there weren't any obvious reasons why he couldn't handle a trip to the police station. But you sensed something different about him. You sensed a levity about him, not in a funny way, but an airiness, a reverie which would have to descend to the gritty reality of a police station. You felt like you had to grab his legs and pull him down, and you did by taking him to the police station yourself. Oh, that I could have pulled him back when he called me last. Thank you, Berlin. Thank you Pat's, and now our, German family.

Lisette

Hillside
104 Deerfield Road
Pomfret Center, CT 06259
Home phone: 860 974 3361
Cell phone: 860 428 4084

Part 9: The Dedication of Pat's Bench and Plaque

2008-02-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

July 17, 2007
Stanford Center
Berlin, Germany

It’s hard to believe that a year and a half has passed since Patrick died, since we’ve all suffered the shock of his demise by his own hand. For my own part, it’s been a journey of humility and pain. As I told my father before he himself died a year after Pat, I feel like someone smashed me in the face for no reason, like I’ve been stunned without knowing why. But this memorial is not about my reaction or suffering. It’s about Patrick, because no matter how much I hurt at losing my beautiful son, it’s not nearly as much as he suffered.

I am struggling to come away with some kind of truth that will channel the pain, and I haven’t uncovered the answers. Like Pat’s favorite line from Tulcholsky, “There is no untrodden snow.” I only know that in my search, I might have stumbled on the path that took Patrick to his death. I think he was trying to understand the sorrow he bore, and he found that understanding in the literature, music, and the intellect of this great country, which is also the embodiment of monumental pain. Berlin itself, with its war torn past and rejuvenated present, symbolizes the extreme range of emotions Pat endured. He soared from the height of accomplishment to the depths of sadness.

It is because he was capable of great disparagement that I am especially grateful to all of you for giving him the solace, the encouragement, the freedom, the acceptance, and the happiness that he craved and that I so wished for him. Berlin brought out the best in Pat. He felt more comfortable here than any other place on earth because Berlin welcomed him. It embraced his humor, his honesty, his silliness, his intellect, and his lifestyle. He could be himself, and from all that I’ve seen since his death, that was more than enough for everybody here. The fact that you are honoring him here is the most meaningful gift you could give him. Even though he lies on a pristine hillside near his home in Pomfret, CT, I feel that he would be most excited to be recognized in the city and school he loved.

And yet the love that he felt could not heal him. There was sorrow in his heart, a sorrow that no one could reach or satisfy, a sorrow that I didn’t understand, and a sorrow that Pat could not control. He turned to literature and music, and those carried him along for many years. He wrote of this admiration and the distancing it caused in school. He describes his isolation because of his ties to a force greater than mankind. I think if we listen to him, we can better see his own path for understanding of pain and, possibly, the transformation he made in the last days of his life. I ask your indulgence in listening with me to Pat’s portrayal of a boy lost in dreams:

The strains of Brahms’s second piano concerto reached his ears and enveloped them with warmth. The gentle current of the music lifted his heart and he let it carry him away. He succumbed to the pure and irresistible flow of emotion, rising and falling as it did. A connection seemed to grow then between the souls of listener and composer; Brahms’s heart was speaking across the centuries in an utterly clear and perfect voice. The boy marveled at the mystery and magic of such a connection.
The boy realized with certainty that in that moment, borne as he was among the swells and waves and thrusts and threads of sound, in that moment he had been granted access to a source greater than words, than mankind. Perhaps it was like an invisible stream bubbling noiselessly through all time, from which composers’ pens plucked out masterpieces. But it had to be something greater than mankind. How else could it strike him so purely, so directly? Brahms, too, and all other humans had been granted access to this medium; but the boy guarded jealously the emotions frothing in his own heart. He knew not everyone was given a soul like his, a soul which could be molded and shaped by a man centuries dead.
With religious zeal he envisioned his own hands performing the piece, recreating for others the sensations he felt. But “recreating” was not the word. No. He was taking part in a mystical experience, bathed in the glow of the concert hall, channeling a force which filled him with joy as it passed through his body. It inhabited him, it nourished him, it elevated him. And in a secret way he imagined that the audience worshipped him. He was above them operating a gleaming ebony instrument—yes, an instrument, a tool whereon he forged a dazzling array of emotions. He was above; he was the vessel for a shimmering outpouring; they sat below in silent, rapturous devotion.
The music in his ears climaxed in a long-held, grandiose chord; but soon it ended and there was nothing beyond. The boy felt drained, betrayed even, in the silence that followed. His laughable images of godhood were shoved aside by the realities of the soreness of his clamped ears and the hard, rough carpet under the back of his head.
I am a fool and a dreamer, the boy said aloud.
Walking onto the crowded (school) bus (the next morning), he was frightened by how hostile and alien the children looked. He no longer felt one of them, but above or below them—he could not tell which. His mind counseled patience; his time would come, it told him. But he sat in an empty seat, and his heart felt very cold and small and sad as the bus rolled away.

Let us hope that Pat’s heart no longer feels “cold and sad,” but that he is above us, “the vessel for a shimmering outpouring” as we sit below in “silent, rapturous devotion.”
Our hearts want so much to realize that godhood for him. We felt it within his grasp when he was alive, and now, as we struggle to understand the pain that drove him to his death, as we attempt to grasp his decision, we find solace in the same ways that he managed, in the music, the literature, and the intellect of this great country. Let us always try to ease our pain in the way that he did his own. We will learn from his journey, and we will hope to be as prepared for our own demise when our time comes.

Karen assumed she would not attend Pat’s dedication. She was suffering terrible back pain and could walk only with crutches. She wrote the following to be read in her absence. But after a serendipitous doctor’s appointment, which allowed her to take Lib and me to see her horse and drive through Pottsdamm earlier that day, Karen gave these remarks at Pat’s dedication.
These words must be spoken in my absence about an absence that has deeply and irrevocably saddened us all. It breaks my heart that I could not spend this day with Lisette and Lib, and be here with all of you for Pat.

This tree and this bench, sponsored by the Bing Overseas Studies Program and Bragg family of Los Angeles, friends of Pat’s grandparents who have a special connection to the City of Berlin, will prompt memories of Pat in perpetuity. I think of Pat often. I will never quite fathom what troubles led him, in a moment of desperation, to shorten his life. I will never again pick up the Sorrows of Young Werther without thinking of Pat, bringing home, in the most bitter of ways, how immortal a poet is Goethe. I will think of Pat each time I come to this bench to have a to have a moment by myself. The first of Pat’s apples is struggling for life on this tree. Life continues.

But Pat’s death was not Pat’s life, nor does the tragic memory override. All of my exchanges with Pat were happy ones, and I will remember him that way: as a sensitive, gentle, engaging man who clearly loved life and demanded a great deal of it. I will remember his flashing blue eyes, windows to a perceptive and inquiring mind, a mind of depth and mirth; I will remember his beautiful smile as a wide and happy one, and his quick wit, that so often made us smile. And his music, of course, which was sometimes somber, but often lighthearted—as music is, and as Pat was.

I hope, Lisette and Lib, that coming here has helped you to share some of the happiness Pat found here; to better understand how this place engaged his highly honed aptitudes and skills, from language to math to literature to music; how many friends he had and how highly they esteemed him. That will not outweigh your loss, but I hope that to allow into the foreground the valid memory that Pat brought much to many in his short life, and that he lived deeply, will help you to heal. Don’t lose touch with us, Pat’s Berlin Diaspora: And remember, you are part of it now, too.

With love,

Karen

Part 10: Pat's Scholarship Update

2008-02-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

Now that I’m at the end of this long post, essentially a year’s worth of news about Pat and his legacy, which was long overdue, I feel like I can bring you up to date on Pat’s scholarship. I promised myself that I would not mention it until this post was done. I have kept in touch by emailing many of you, but I owed it to Mike Love and Lauren Schneider, who set up the blog, to keep it current. It’s still not as complete as I would like. There have been many more amazing tributes, stories, jokes, laughter, conversations, realizations, and new perspectives, which I plan to explore. But for now, this was enough. I feel like I can allow myself to mentally shift forward to a cause I think is worthy of Pat.

Shortly after Bob and I came back from the Stanford Memorial, the question of what next arose. Yes, we were agonizing about his headstone, but we needed something more pro-active. We settled on the merit scholarship, which was awarded for the first time last year to eighth-grader Hannah Leo. The reason we chose it was because Pat had won it when he went to Pomfret School. It was the talk of the eighth-grade parents at the Pomfret Community School. Who would get the four-year free ride to arguably one of the best prep schools in the country? With a 99% on his SSAT’s and nothing but A’s on his report card, Pat was the hands down winner. At the time, when he graduated from eighth-grade in 1997, it was worth about $20,000 a year for day students of which he was one since Pomfret School is essentially in our front yard. It may also have been one of the few merit scholarships available. Most schools, Pomfret included, were leaning toward need-based financial aid. Scholarship, for its own sake, was disappearing. In Pomfret’s case, the 9/11 economic down turn spelled the end of what was known as “The Peck Scholarship.”

We approached Pomfret School about resurrecting a merit-based, and merit only, scholarship in Pat’s name. We had seen what it did for Pat. It was his award and his alone. It was not based on our income needs. He had deserved it and been recognized solely based on his ability. We wanted other young scholars to be rewarded on their own merit as well. As Bob put it, we didn’t care if Bill Gates’s son won it. He deserved to be rewarded for his own ability, not his parents’ income or lack thereof. Pomfret immediately agreed, allowing us to make the first presentation last June.

The problem is that we can only award $1,000 a year based on the interest of the approximately $27,000 in the fund so far. Geoff Liggett, Director of the Pomfret School Development Office, estimates that we will need over $1 million to fund a student every year for all four years as Pat was. Day student tuition, at this point, is about $25,000 a year. We are nowhere near rewarding bright students to the same extent, and we cannot approach that level without help.

Some of you have asked how to contribute to Pat’s memory. This is how. Help us make this the full ride that it used to be. Help make Pat’s name the envy of every aspiring Pomfret School applicant in the surrounding towns. I know of no better way to honor his memory. Yes, I would like to see the book and the movie of “The Essential Patrick,” as Ryan called him. I would like to see him at the forefront of enough research to eradicate suicide. But for now, this is a start. It was a reward that made Pat proud, and I would like to see it make others proud. I would like to see them earning every penny of what Pat got because they are simply the most amazing kids in the area, because maybe they are beautiful, quirky, funny, and astonishing. Maybe they are the standard bearers of “The Essential Patrick.”

Thank you for considering it, and for sending a contribution to:

The Patrick Wood Fund
Development Office
Pomfret School
928 Pomfret Street
Pomfret, CT 06258

I don’t think it’s the amount that’s important. Rather, I would like to see as many people as possible send a little bit. It’s a way of seeing the results of your admiration. A long list of donors would put his name in the limelight. You may be thinking that he had so much attention in his short life, and it’s true. He accomplished more than many of us will in a lifetime. But in order to perpetuate what he stood for and what he loved (even though he didn’t like drawing attention to himself), and maybe more fundamental, to create a reason to talk about him, we would love your help. Thank you again for reading, listening, and thinking about “The Essential Patrick.”

All our deepest gratitude,

Lisette

Pat in fifth, sixth, and eighth grade

Birthday

2007-10-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, little Pat!

Love from Berlin. We're missing you here!
Tibor & Joe

Patrick's Gravestone

2007-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Dear friends of Pat,

Patrick's stone was put in place last week. I'm attaching the pictures. But first I must apologize for not writing sooner. My dad's funeral was a big event on March 3rd, and I tried to help Anne prepare as much as possible. And then before that I spent a couple of weeks with them before he died. It was a time of limited capability for him, but it was a magical time for me because I learned more lessons about living and dying. My dad fought hard, much like I think Pat must have the last weeks before he died. The difference was that my dad was mentally able until close to the end. His cancer had metastasized, from a melanoma on the back of his head, to his lung, and then his spine, liver, and brain--all within a year from the time you saw him last March. For the most part, he was clear-headed. You had to go some to follow his logic, but it was there. He stopped treatment in January after a brain radiation at the Morris Cancer Center at USC detected more than the three tumors spotted in a cat scan at St. John's. They saw at least seven, including one too big to radiate, and others too small. Their equipment was higher resolution than St. John's.
In comparison, I think Pat's disease went straight to his brain but was not detected. It was just as painful as my dad's tumors and just as lethal. But the big difference is that it was not considered a physical ailment--at least by me--and I would argue that I'm not alone in this general perception. We can detect tumors but not depression. Why? It is just as deadly and even more insidious. It is a physical ailment, and it attacked the very organ that Pat and you and I and everybody thought would save him. It attacked his beautiful mind and his will to live. And the really sad part is that no one knew he was sick, no one gave him any morphine, and even more heartbreaking, he probably suffered more than my father--all because we didn't understand depression as a physiological problem. We thought it was just sadness, that he would recover from his heartache like most of us do, and I was the biggest offender. I did not see it as a medical problem before Pat died.
We have to change our perception of depression. I certainly have. Pat is reason enough, but for the people who didn't know him, who haven't had to search for answers, then the murder/suicide at Virginia Tech should make it obvious. Until we can test--medically, chemically, by scanning the brain, whatever it takes. Until we can test for depression, we are going to see this over and over and over. Seung-Hui Cho tragically brought this issue to the forefront of the nation, and the nation is feeling like we have since Pat died.
The placement of Pat's stone has caused reflection. I see him now as one of many victims who suffered psychological pain, who had to diagnose themselves, navigate the mental health system, describe their symptoms, try hit or miss drugs, try therapy, talk themselves into feeling better--when all the while, there was a physical deterioration. It was like trying to talk my dad out of cancer. It's like we're in the dark ages of mental illness. Still.
I hope to God that more research will come out of this latest example of self-harm. To me, it's the key. It's the key to saving the beautiful people like Pat and saving the victims of those who turn their destruction outward. Pat was the opposite of Cho. He turned his destruction inward, but the questions in the aftermath are strikingly similar. How could we not have known? Why didn't someone step in? How should colleges handle mental illness? And on and on. It's an all too familiar discussion for us. We asked the same questions of ourselves all year. How could this happen?
That's what I asked myself as I stood in front of his headstone. How could this happen?

I offer a parting link on the issue of mental health and Virginia Tech:

http://www.upi.com/Consumer_Health_Daily/Reports/2007/04/24/caregiving_factors_pointing_to_suicide/

I'd also like to mention that several of you have opened my eyes to the American Federation of Suicide Prevention, which organizes suicide walks all over the country. They're called Out of the Darkness. I did one in the pouring rain last October. It was a large group of people, all soaking wet from walking five kilometers in a downpour and all devastated by suicide. I walked alongside a woman who had lost her niece and the niece's boyfriend. It was a double suicide in the garage of the mother's house. I have taught Romeo and Juliet for six years. I never knew it could really happen. There were about twenty parents who had lost a child. Twenty people in one room who had been through this hell. I couldn't believe there were so many tragedies like Pat. It was a communal awakening, and it advanced my questions. At fifteen months since Pat’s death, I have begun to ask what it is I am to come away with from this tragedy? I think the answers lie with all the other Patricks to come and, yes, even the Chos. Their minds have been altered in tangible and, hopefully, predictable ways.

All my deepest love,

Lisette
Hillside
104 Deerfield Road
Pomfret Center, CT 06259
Home phone: 860 974 3361
Cell phone: 860 428 4084

And I rest in a quiet realm.
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song

From "I Am Lost To The World"
by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866)

Pictures by Patrick's dad

One year

2007-01-30T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking frequently about losing Pat last year and it still is hard to accept that I can't get back in touch with him. Another well-loved and much too young Stanford student died a few weeks ago, a girl named Sabrina. A lot of my friends knew her and are still grieving. Trying to take something from these experiences, I've started to feel an extra appreciation for the friends still in my life - and wanted to write some of what I've been thinking.

I felt a close connection to Pat though I realize that I hadn't spoken to him very frequently in the second half of school or post graduation. We both spoke German, were math majors, and were relatively shy guys at least in the beginning of school. I think Andrew Nielsen was the reason I spent the time I did with Pat freshman year. Before I got to know him, Pat seemed like an frustrated, somewhat angsty guy - thinking back people might have thought the same of me. Through the course of the year he seemed to relax and I can remember him playing a lot of piano in the dorm lounge. I remember wanting to stop and listen but worried about making him feel like he was performing.

After freshman year, when I saw him he seemed really much happier though in the same sarcastic kind of way. The sarcasm was what drew me to Pat I think, plus the fact that he deeply respected his friends and was quite humble despite being obviously very smart.

Sophmore and junior year I saw a lot of Pat - he came out and was therefore out more I think and also he was living with Andrew and eventually taking math classes with me or with my roommate Albert Chan. I remember celebrating his 21st birthday at a pub on Emerson. I remember Pat coming out to Andrew and me one night as we were driving around to find food. Andrew and I tried to convince him that this was great that he was coming out - that now he could tell Andrew and I which one of us was hotter, but he refused to make that call.

These memories I have of Pat at Lag and 680 are of a smiling, eager, amiable guy wanting to meet new people and have a good time while in that period of life that seems so devoted to the future. I saw the same thing that Steve saw when he said in an earlier post, "At such moments he seemed entirely happy, growing into the world, appreciating its art and laughing at its absurdity."

I wish I could trace where he went since then. I imagine he's out there somewhere in a mess of German Romantic poets and clubs. I know that people go their separate ways but I can't help thinking that I really should have stayed in touch with Pat while he was in Germany. Something about the rush of college, people, finding work, finding a place to live makes it so easy to just imagine that someday everyone will be close at hand again.

I hope the rest of you are all doing well and wish you the best,

Mike

Pat at a comic book convention

2006-05-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post these for a while, but just recently got them scanned in and online. In Spring 2004, Alice, Nate and I took Pat along to a comic book convention in San Francisco.

These are some photos of Pat with various, strange people in costumes. They are really charming and capture Pat's goofy and easygoing side well. I'm not sure if the comic-con was totally Pat's scene, but he was a really good sport when we made him pose with every possible costumed character. We all had a blast at the end of the convention, watching a "Masquerade" contest, where people showed off their handmade suits to win nerdy prizes.

I love these pictures-- and the bittersweet fact that Pat had them in his suitcase and had brought them over to Germany with him, as Lisette has informed me-- makes them even more important and dear to me. Enjoy.
-Ryan S.

1. Pat with Boba Fett.

2. Pat, looking slightly scared, with some sort of fruit bat.

3. Pat and Alice with an awesome dragon warrior dude.

4. Pat with... SHREK!!

Pat's Pomfret School Alumni Award

2006-05-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Pomfret School, where Pat attended high school, recently gave him an alumni achievement award. They very generously invited Bob and me to the alumni dinner where Libby accepted the award for Pat. Many friends from his (and Lib's) class of '01 were there, and we were able to share stories about prom dates and classroom jokes. Pat had a way of getting others laughing and then pretend to take notes while they got in trouble. The best part of the evening was Lib's acceptance speech which I'm including along with Pomfret's program.

Lib's acceptance speech

I'm so honored for Pat. Thank you to all that were involved in awarding this to my late twin brother. I'm not great with words these days, so I thought I'd read the lyrics of a song that fills my body and soul with thoughts of him.

This song is one I recently discovered from Radiohead's live album entitled "I might be wrong." Radiohead was one of Pat's favorite groups. As soon as I heard it, it stood out as special.

"True Love Waits" by Radiohead

I'll drown my beliefs
To have you be in peace
I'll dress like your niece
To wash your swollen feet

Just don't leave
Don't leave

I'm not living
I'm just killing time
Your tiny hands
Your crazy kitten smile

Just don't leave
Don't leave

Andtrue love waits
In haunted attics
And true love lives
On lollipops and crisps

Just don't leave
Don't leave

Just don't leave
Don't leave

2006-05-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

When I first met Patrick, on the platform at Berlin's Bahnhof Zoo, I was struck by his eager smile and his restless energy; he seemed almost to bounce up and down as he talked. This is one of countless memories that will resonate with me in years to come.

I remember many good times with Pat, yet it was not always clear that this would be so, for our friendship was not of our choosing. Patrick was Ryan's friend and I was Ryan's boyfriend and, both solitary by nature, we approached each other with a certain wariness. Over time, however, we became friends in our own right because, quite simply, when you met Patrick you wanted to be his friend. So many of us were conquered by his natural charm and grace, and it is all the more difficult to accept that we were unable to understand him more fully, to embrace all of the Essential Patrick in these last terrible months.

After Patrick returned to Berlin, we would meet for lunch, dinner or a concert, to play scrabble or watch TV. And he was always so easy to be with, explaining the context of a particular symphony, sharing a joke and - unlike Ryan - actually staying awake to the end of a film. The best companions are those with whom conversation is not always necessary, where silences are not uncomfortable. Patrick was such a companion.

Patrick could be swept away by Mahler's Sixth Symphony, or laugh out loud at Chicken Run. At such moments he seemed entirely happy, growing into the world, appreciating its art and laughing at its absurdity. Yet the Essential Patrick ran far deeper than this, deeper than we would ever realise. For Patrick was, in essence, a very serious person and for serious people the world's absurdity can, at times, be hard to take. It is absurd that political and religious leaders should gain popularity by maligning one of the vital facts of your being. It is hard to laugh at such absurdity and feel good about yourself when you work hard and strive for honesty in your own life. Patrick was a thoroughly decent person and there was not one thing in his life to be ashamed of.

In those terrible hours on the 6th of February, as darkness descended on Berlin, I reflected on our last few meetings. It is easy to believe that everyone has the right to be left alone to lead their own life but we must surely hold our friends more dear than this. We saw but one aspect of the Essential Patrick, we should have dug deeper, intruded upon his privacy, for the pain he was feeling must not be borne alone.

I expected the good times I had with Patrick to be joined by many more. I looked forward to evenings spent playing Scrabble, not just old score sheets that bring a catch to your throat. Instead of seeing Patrick sat at the kitchen table we now open our magazines to find his half-finished crosswords. The memories are painful but they are vibrant, and in the realisation of what we have lost lies the joy of all we gained by knowing him. Patrick cut a swathe through our lives and his life, his death will echo with us down the years. For me, Berlin will always be Patrick.

Pat's tree in Berlin

2006-04-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

I thought everyone might appreciate a picture of Pat's tree planted in Berlin April 20th. I've included a copy of my letter read by Ryan Wirtz for the occasion. The picture was taken by Karen Kramer, Director of the Stanford Center in Berlin which has graciously memorialized Pat and will add a bench and plaque in the near future. Love to everyone from Pat's mom

Dear Friends of Pat, or more aptly, dear German family of Pat,

We are so very sorry to miss this magnanimous event which represents tremendous effort on the part of the Stanford Center. We are deeply moved that you hold Patrick in such high esteem as to memorialize him with a permanent spot in the Stanford Villa garden. By doing so, you are making him a visible part of your history—a history which includes the renown architecture of this beautiful villa, its destruction after World War II, and its preservation by the City of Berlin and now Stanford University. By planting this tree, you have linked Patrick to an illustrious rebirth. This house and garden, threatened with ruination, now cultivates the finest students in the world. We were honored that you embraced Pat as one of those students, and today we are astounded that you are now including him in your history. By allowing him to share this land with events of immense significance, you are in turn extending that significance to him. It is a gesture of permanence and regeneration for which we are deeply grateful. But more than that, it is an honor for Pat to remain part of such a fine institution.
Please accept our deepest gratitude for your kindness and generosity. Patrick himself could ask for nothing more than what you have given. He loved each of you with all of his heart, and his heart was the biggest part of him. He loved the school and the city. The love that he felt was why he was here. He couldn’t wait to come back after graduation last June. I remember asking him what it was that attracted him. “I’m having fun,” he said simply, and that was enough for me. But his version of fun was not simple. That’s what you are showing by honoring him this way. You are showing that he had fun by giving to others. He spread laughter and insights, and sometimes just really good jokes. Friends have told me he could have them laughing hysterically in the most serious of situations. This was especially true in a particularly dry music theory class at Tanglewood in Massachusetts one summer. Some wanted to skip the class. It was, after all, summertime. But Pat’s friends would go just to hold their heads in their hands with laughter at his elaborate exaggerations.
As Pat’s mother, I was not the recipient of many of those jokes, but I did absorb his passion. Let me recall a conversation we had last Christmas, which was the last time I saw him. We were returning some German books, which I had bought him for Christmas. Being the frugal person that he was, he didn’t want me to pay the added charge of buying them in the U.S. “They’re cheaper in Germany,” he said, and he showed me the difference between Euros and U.S. dollars.
“How did you learn to read them?” I asked stupidly. He knew that any language but English escapes me.
“You get the sense of it and then it just comes. You absorb it,” he said.
That was Patrick’s version of “having fun.” He absorbed your culture and your love. Thank you for giving him that opportunity. Thank you also for giving him this lovely, tangible presence at such a venerated site. He would be blushing right now if he knew. Instead, we will shed tears as we think of you paying this tribute. May God do for you someday as you are doing for Patrick today.

All our love and gratitude,

Patrick’s family

Pat's Stanford Memorial Service announcement

2006-03-30T10:27:00.000-08:00

I'm sure a lot of you have seen this, but it is such a radiant picture of Pat that I jumped the first time I saw it. Thank you Sheena for creating this beautiful announcement, and you too, Kyle, for creating the lovely program of the service. I'll try to get that picture on as well.

Love to all Patrick friends everywhere,

Lisette

Dear Stanford Friends of Pat,

2006-03-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

This is another one of my inadequate attempts to thank you for your devotion to Pat. Your time, creative effort, Pat stories, conversation, Pat tour, dinners, hand holding, and shared crying will resonate with us always. You provided some of the few moments of relief we have known since his death. My tears fall on the keyboard as I try to summon the words and strength to tell you how dearly I hold your sympathy.

Sheena, you were the driving force behind the memorial service March 18th. I cannot thank you enough for organizing such a well-attended tribute. You managed to create beauty and meaning out of misery. Your heart showed through gallantly. You spent three days sharing the best and worst moments. The stories of Pat tutoring you in math for eight minutes and then yakking for three hours were like gold to us. To see the actual math building the next day was even better. It helped us picture both of you. I was desperate to know he had good moments and you proved that he did. I know we sapped your strength and your tears, but you gave us many good memories at a time when we are dwelling on the horror of loss. You are a dear to do so much for him and us. We will value your kindness for the rest of our lives. You have help to repair the shattered bond to him.

Lauren, you have also shared good and bad moments, but mostly bad, and you came all the way to Connecticut to do it. Then you were at Stanford when your own family was in crisis. Your quiet manner, your kind eyes, your silent grace were a model of what a good friend should be. Pat was lucky to have you and so are we. You have sacrificed your time, money, and academics because of us and I can only tell you that we are deeply grateful but also worried that you are under so much pressure. School, especially Stanford, waits for no one. I will feel better when you actually graduate. I hope your teachers are truly understanding. You should get A's based on character alone.

Ryan, you have given us some of the best moments since we found out the news. I cling to your stories and your pictures. I lost the most precious thing in the world to me-one of my children-and you gave him back to me as much as possible. I loved your eulogy. Your stories of Pat's humor (“Intense. Like campers?”) will stay with me always. I wished I could have stayed with you all night listening to Pat stories. You knew him as well as anyone and I treasure your memories more than my own. I felt that you shared my grief intimately because you filled in many years since he left home. Your pictures with captions in chronological order are safely backed up and I've looked at them many times. You were dear to follow up with such a time-consuming email. I know how long it takes to write. This one has been taking up much of the evening.

Kyle, you sacrificed so much time coming for the memorial all the way from LA. I was so glad to see you because I remember what a good friend you were freshman year. I was always relieved that Pat had a friend to drive down to LA. Thank you for the dedication of being there for us, of escorting us around campus with Sheena, and sharing all your support. Thank goodness he had you and your mom to take that fabulous picture in front of the Hoover Tower. It takes my breath away to see you both in such a magnificent setting, the world opening up to you on such an impressive level. Now it's left to you, and all other friends of Pat's, to make the most of your lives, to have the conversations, think the grand thoughts, have the intimate dinners, and see the world which Pat cannot see any longer. Do it for yourselves. Do it for him. Most of all, know that we love you and miss you desperately. Saying goodbye was like saying goodbye to Pat all over again.

Mr. Barth, I wish I had another night just to speak with you alone. It sounds like you knew Pat's first loves-German and music-and you could have explained much more to me about their effect. You understood the power of those poems, and I felt that you, better than anyone, could see their pull on his psyche. Somehow, I want everybody to see that. I want them to know that, as irrational as they may be, he had his reasons for doing what he did, and his reasons had a purity that he felt could be achieved no other way. I don't mean to glorify his actions. I want the trail that he followed to make some sense, even if it should never be followed again. I felt you understood that because you had an uneasy respect for the literature he loved. I would like to send you a CD of his music (if you wouldn't mind). And if anyone else would like a copy, please send me your address. I would be honored to have you listen.

To the very kind gentleman who gave the opening remarks, pardon me for not remembering your name. It's one of the many details which have slipped my mind as I try to absorb new sides of Pat's life. You were so right about friends indicating the quality of a person's character. His friends are now precious to me not only because they were Pat's life, but because they are perfect in and of themselves, just like Pat. Thank you for pointing that out so eloquently.

Andrew, your letter read by Sheena was a high tribute to Pat. You wrote so honestly about the dread with which life can be filled. To be honest, I was crying so much at the time that Pat would miss out on your friendship, that I didn't hear all of your letter. I would greatly appreciate it if you or Sheena could forward it to me. I would love to read it over and over. You were among Pat's best friends. Ryan has told me a few funny stories of visiting you at “Chappy” (do I have that correctly?) and getting loosened up before working on graphics at the Daily downstairs. Then Pat got to leave while Ryan stayed until 2:00 AM or so to put the paper to bed. Sounds like Pat got the better end of those evenings. Ryan said you were a good friend. I thank you with all my heart for the good times you gave Pat. I wish those years could have lasted forever. They seem to be the best of Pat's life thanks to friends like you. I give you my love and admiration for the moments when he was happy with you. I would very much like to send you a CD of his music also. If you could manage to forward your eulogy and send me your address I would be grateful.

To Alice, Patricia (whose stories of Trivial Pursuits sound a lot like mine with Pat. He knew trivia and I did not), Ali (whose pictures I have not even looked at yet. I'm nervous that I'm going to ruin them), Kathryn (who put us at ease about the storage unit. We did get his things successfully thanks to you), Meena (whose sad eyes and quiet voice spoke volumes of your love for Pat), Mike Love (whose facility with blogs has been an inspiration to me. All my love and thanks for creating this online tribute where I go for consolation and communication), and everyone else whose names I have forgotten-I love and cherish your thoughts for Pat. They have kept me going during the worst time of my life, and I will remember your kindness always. Please stay in touch, come visit so we can show you where Pat is resting, and call to cry with me. It helps immensely.

All our love,

Pat's family--Lisette, Bob, Libby, and Colin

The Essential Patrick

2006-03-19T08:41:00.000-08:00

I've included below the text of my reflections of Patrick from the Berlin memorial service. - Ryan Wirtz /getryan@gmail.com

-- -- --
Over one month has passed since Patrick’s Berlin community learned of his death and the people close to him here have gathered—and continue to gather— in a variety of capacities to reflect on him.

On February 15, we held a celebration of Patrick’s life at the Stanford Center in Berlin. Beyond that, however, we have seen a constant conversation about Patrick on this side of the Atlantic because his life meant so much to so many. We’ve mourned him in our city’s smoky cafes and tea houses, at brunches and dinners, in universities and workplaces and discos, and privately, in reflection, in our cars, subways, parks and living rooms.

We want all of you in the U.S. to know that Patrick’s legacy in Berlin continues; it is alive as the tree that will be planted here in his memory. On the ground in Berlin, among those who knew him, his presence is as palpable as his absence, in how much people miss him and how much he meant. And today, I want to reflect on my Patrick story with you all, as one of the many voices that Patrick has changed.

I want reflect on the reasons why he came to Berlin, why he lived his life deliberately in the spirit of what his friends and I called “The Essential Patrick”, and to capture and celebrate his legacy.

Patrick Wood’s incomparable time with us touched us profoundly. He touched us long before the tragedy of his passing, a remarkable event for all of us that will leave many questions unanswered and many hearts crying.

He touched us not because we have lost his love of humanity and its questions -- but because he dared to ask them at all.

Patrick engaged with his world and sought to understand it, and press back against it at its most fundamental levels. He had come to find in his heart the answers to questions for which there were no words, only feelings, and endeavored to find for himself an understanding of the earth in a way that was uniquely his, an insight that he imagined and articulated with his own distinctive voice.

This is what I will miss most about my friend Patrick; yet this will be to me his most enduring honor.

Patrick and I knew each other casually at Stanford, but grew close together during the spring 2004 quarter here at Stanford in Berlin. I remember the dinner that marked the beginning of the term, when he was hobbling around the table in crutches.

It reminded me how Patrick could be painfully, yet endearingly, clumsy and disorganized – not because his exceptional gifts ever failed him but because he was absorbed in a world of ideas and music (and yes, even gossip and banter) that distracted him from the minor details. He was keenly aware of this, though, and he celebrated it.

Patrick didn’t do details unless he had to, and on his first of his many nights in Berlin, when he set out to explore the legends of the city’s nightlife at Kino International, he missed the stairs and dramatically and ungracefully fell. And thus, at the start of the term, he defended his perceived lack of grace and glamour, charmingly defensive and sensitive. That was the essential Patrick.

Patrick came to Berlin to learn lessons that he could only find here. He learned them well and in the two years we were together in this city, the arc of his amazing grace beautifully illuminated himself and those around him.

In Berlin, Patrick came to understand and embrace who he was, but he cared more about what he could and would become. This element of essential Patrick is evident in a monologue from one of his favorite films, "All About My Mother", when the feisty drag queen Agrado proclaimed, “A person is more authentic the more he looks like what he has dreamed for himself to be.”

In Berlin, Patrick was able to become the young man he dreamed of becoming. He found answers to questions that could be lost in the lights of the city and the serenity of Germany’s countryside. He could laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Patrick and I would talk about the world’s big issues and the irrelevant. We would joke about mathematics, about love, about Germany and the Germans, about art and music and literature. We would question together politics and the value of the ironic hipster scene, and we would discuss strategy to transform our dreams and ambitions into reality.

Last summer, when we had graduated, we explored Munich together and met at the university where the S.S. captured the White Rose student group in 1944. Their humanist and intellectual approach to resisting the Third Reich particularly inspired Patrick because he was a thinker and identified in those who could think with him.

Patrick could relate to this more than he could any politician. He didn't care for wars or occupation, and he didn’t care much for most political issues; instead, everything that he found fascinating about Germany either died long before 1933 or was a product of the 21st century.

However, he found a sort of purity in being lost in thoughts and ideas and therefore embraced the White Rose for doing what he thought was the same. He came to appreciate the political questions in the way that he cared about the world and cared about humanity and where it was going.

He followed the world because he was of the world, and read voraciously to understand its complexity. In his own words, his insights focused less on discussions about the balance of power and more on balancing equality. And in Berlin, Patrick saw himself as an expatriate who wanted to break stereotypes and counter the negative attitude towards Americans that he saw pervading his German friends, colleagues, and society. But he did it all so subtly and gently. That was the essential Patrick.

After finishing at the University and walking around the English Garden, Munich’s central park, we bought some blueberries at a kiosk and found a patch of grass along a stream in the garden. We reclined together. Patrick asked me to open my laptop and bring him a German symphony; I chose Beethoven.

Under our slice of Bavarian heaven, we reclined on the grass under the cloudless sky, blue as robin's eggshells, and talked for hours as the sun set. We even ventured to consider our own response if we were approached by Hans Scholl to join the White Rose. In true Pat fashion, he said that if he were approached by any German guy as attractive as Hans, he would have done whatever he had asked. Patrick would often reference that day as one of the most special of our time together and I am comforted that he knew how much he was cherished.

Patrick was a serious student who was growing into a gentle man, with a grin and goofy laugh that brightened the world around him. He solved puzzles and proofs, created music like a star and amazed everyone with his brilliance. Yet, he did it all so quietly, without ever wanting recognition, without ever wanting to admit to himself how spectacular the essential Patrick could be.

He was becoming the great man we all knew he would become and was finding peace with himself to accept that he would do things differently. That would lay the foundation and his big work had only just begun.

There was in Patrick the most amazing promise for things to come; in Berlin, he found a place where he could realize it all. He embraced the city and the city embraced him. In this environment, he flourished. By his own admission, Patrick had some of his happiest days here, and, in fact, some of his happiest nights.

But Patrick was in pain and his soul fell burdened under the weight of his illness and the struggle of his own emotions—emotions that, like so many aspects of his life, were superhuman. But his struggle was superhuman also and ultimately defeated him.

Patrick was a young person who could not continue to fight, despite his gifts; who could not continue to cry, despite the joy he brought to his world; and could not continue to live, despite his energy and passion.

He left the world just as he lived in it—deliberately, not impulsively, and after what he felt was a rational, calm introspection. We have no choice now but to accept the fact that he felt the time had come, but I also take comfort in knowing that he left us painlessly and that he also felt that he would finally find peace.

Patrick knew he was not alone when he was alive. He knew that legions of people would reach out to him and he communicated that acceptance in his own Patrick ways. He leaves behind many people who loved him and many communities that will mourn his loss.

I had dared to dream of a Patrick who would grow old with his friends, whose wrinkled face would betray a lifetime of those laughs and smiles that we would share together and those laughs and smiles that only he could bring. But Patrick had every gift a man could want except more tomorrows than yesterdays. And we will never forget him.

Loving Memories of Patrick

2006-03-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

When I first met Patrick's grandfather, Patrick was only 9 months old. And by the time we married, I knew I was not only marrying a great man, but inheriting a wonderful family in the bargain. From the beginning we would be called "Granddad and Anne". Although at times that phrase would get twisted around and teasingly come out as, "GranAnne and Dad". More recently when we visited Patrick at Stanford or in Berlin, I would get a thrill each time Patrick would proudly introduce us as, "his grandparents." He was so easy to love.

Patrick and Libby started spending several weeks with us in Santa Monica each summer from about the age of twelve. We looked forward to it as much as they did. Then when Pat expressed an interest in coming to the West Coast to college, the four of us took a great trip to San Francisco to check out Stanford and Berkeley. Patrick had also been interested in Cal Tech, but after a visit there he quickly concluded that he wanted more out of college than just academics.

As you can see in the pictures, it was Libby and Patrick at the beachtaking off on their own to spend time at the beach (even though it was embarrassing to be seen on our “dorky bicycles”), taking tennis and golf lessons or just going outside to toss the frizz bee We were thrilled when he chose to attend Stanford with the prospect of more frequent contact with Patrick. Or the many Thanksgivings and Easters when he would pitch in by mashing the potatoes for the family dinner and

I’m not sure that I have fully accepted the fact that we will no longer have the pleasure of Pat’s company, not to mention his phone calls and emails.

2006-03-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

Dear family and friends of Pat!

My name is Tobias, I would call myself a friend of Pat. I got to know him in Berlin in 2004 and spent some wonderful times with him there, as well as in Munich or in the Bavarian Alps, where he visited me and my family for a few days last year. I will try to set a picture here...
(and sorry for my english - it might not be perfect)

Those last weeks were, as for all of you I think, the sadest I have had in my whole life so far.

When you grow up, the whole world seems to be kind. There are your parents, taking care of you. There are your friends you are having good times with. Everything seems just to be wonderful, in your little protected world.
But, you’re getting older. And the older you get, the more terrible things are going to happen.
People around you, people you love, are getting illnesses, others might have accidents... and others would die.
As this is not difficult enough to handle, Pat left by his own decision. Left all of us with nothing but questions. And there is no chance to ever be able to tell him, that he is really loved.

Defenitiley, the world has started to scare me. What will be next...?

Pat set this sentence in one of those internet-profiles:
„Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen“
It is the begin of a poem by „Friedrich Rückert“ that Gustav Mahler edited in his „Rückert-Lieder“ (=Rueckert-Songs)... I feel free to put he english translation in this blog, although it really is „hard stuff“, especially in this situation:

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!
(original from Friedrich Rückert)

I am just thinking, this is something he wanted to tell us.

For me, there is nothing left but looking at pictures of him, remembering the wonderful times I was able to spend with him and be sad about those, I did not have him around. I know, I should not question so much, due to there will never be any answers.
I am trying to keep as much as I got to know of „Pat’s world“ alive in my world. And I promise, I always will.
„I rest in a quiet realm“ – I really hope, you do, little Pat!!

Memorial Service at Stanford-in-Berlin

2006-03-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

For Patrick

Karen Kramer, Memorial Service at Stanford-in-Berlin, February 15, 2006

On behalf of my colleagues here in Berlin and at the Bing Overseas Studies Program at Stanford University, I welcome you at this difficult time to the place where Patrick Wood encountered, and fell in love with, this country.

We welcome Patrick’s family: His mother and father Lisette Rimer and Bob Wood, his brother and twin sister Collin and Libby, from Connecticut; and his grandparents, Dr. David and Anne Rimer, from Los Angeles.
Patrick’s close friends Ryan Wirtz and Steve Pryce.
His colleagues from Siemens in Berlin.
His friends from Berlin and elsewhere in Germany.

My colleagues and I join you today to honor the memory of the warm and talented man who parted from us at a tragically young age. It was Patrick’s choice to go, and we have no choice but to accept his decision. Each of us will, with time, learn to live with the loss. Particularly for you, his family, this will not be easy. But may I suggest that the best, the most fitting way to do so, is to keep Patrick alive in our memories—concretely, in all his goodness and complexity.

That will not be easy either, for Patrick was many things: The new England farm kid who favored the big city; the American who made Berlin his second home; the brilliant mathematician whose piano playing turned sound into ambrosia. These halls still echo the sound of his playing, and not only because of the music you heard playing as you entered, recordings of Patrick playing at Tanglewood. Patrick played this beloved grand piano, a gift of Helen & Peter Bing, more than any other student in the history of the instrument — and many have done so. He played it in 2004, when he started coursework here; and when her returned to Berlin fort he Krupp Seminar after his internship with BMW in August that year; and during his internship with Siemens since last summer, coming in on weekends and on evenings, just to play. When the instrument is idle now, it will be with a lonelier silence.

Allow me to digress for a moment to tell you a little about this house and this garden. In a moment you will understand why I do so. Patrick’s return to Berlin showed it was not a place he was to forget. Nor is it a place that will forget him.

Haus Cramer is the heritage name for this property, one of Berlin’s most famous architectural & landscape monuments, named after the Jewish family that contracted Hermann Muthesius to build it in 1911/1912. The house was built and landscaped in the spirit of the back-to-nature movment of the pre-WW I period in the understated style of the English landhouse. In 1933, within three months of the Nazi rise to power, family Cramer emigrated to New York, never to return. Prof. Julius Posener, one of Germany’s foremost architectural historians, a native of Berlin who had spent decades in exile, accepted a professorship in Berlin and returned in the mid-1970s. He immediately returned to the building that had inspired him to study architectural history as a young man: Haus Cramer. The house had been in ruins for over two decades, following a gas explosion that removed the roof and top floor; it was being torn down, stone by stone. Posener started a successful citizens’ initiative to save Haus Cramer, and in 1974/75 the city restored it to lease to Stanford as site of the Berlin campus. In 2000 Stanford alumnus George Will and other alumni donated funds to buy it for the University; it is the only property Stanford owns outside the United States.

I recount the history of this site not only because it was part of Pat’s history, but also because he will have a space in its history. We have received permission by the Monument Protection Agency (Amt für Denkmalschutz) to augment this historical site; as soon as the ground thaws, we will plant a Cox Orange Apple tree and place beneath it a white bench with a plaque in Patrick’s memory in the corner of the main garden. Our thanks to architect Burckhardt Fischer, for persuasively requesting, and to the Amt für Gardendenkmalschutz, for quickly granting, approval of the project. An historical reference facilitated the approval: Muthesius’s original plans for Haus Cramer included a wooden gazebo in the corner of the garden, marking a spot to which members of the family could withdraw, together or alone, for reflection and conversation. The gazebo was never built, and the corner has always seemed empty. Patrick’s corner will offer his future peers a space that befits the probing mind and rich heart of our departed son, brother, student and friend.

The joy of remembering Pat will always be laced with melancholy, not only because of his death, but also because that specific mix was one of the things that made him who he was —a meld of introspection and wit, honed by that acute alertness that he had about him. That was his signature as perceived by us, his mentors. It is born out in the automatic signatura of his emails, which quotes a passage by Kurt Tucholsky that he discovered when Ryan and Steve took him to Rheinsberg for his 23rd Birthday:

Und immer sind da Spuren,
und immer ist einer da gewesen,
und immer ist einer noch höher geklettert
als du es je gekonnt hast, noch viel höher.
Das darf dich nicht entmutigen.
Klettere, steige, steige.
Aber es gibt keine Spitze.
Und es gibt keinen Neuschnee.
(Kurt Tucholsky, 1931)

And always there are footprints
and always someone’s been there
and always somone’s already climbed higher
than you ever could, much higher.
That dare not dishearten you.
Climb, ascend, ascend.
But there is no summit.
And there is no new snow.

(Kurt Tucholsky, 1931, transl. Karen Kramer)

The evening we learned of Patrick’s death, Jutta and Daniel and I went over to Ryan and Steve’s place to be together. We were linked by phone with Lisette in Connecticut. As Jutta and I left the house, new snow was falling—gently, the way it can only do at night. The new snow was for Patrick.

Dear Lauren, Mike, and other contributors,

2006-03-02T09:19:00.000-08:00

This is the hardest letter I've ever had to write--publicizing thoughts on the death of my son. It's inconceivable even though I knew it was a possibility during his last year at Stanford. I will be contemplating that dichotomy the rest of my life. I have no response, only questions, mostly pointed at myself. It is a torment from which I am reeling. There's a quote in Night by Elie Wiesel about knowing God through the questions we ask. Pat and I contemplated that idea once briefly, and then went on to something else. At the time it didn't seem important. Now, all I do is question. I am completely humbled, maybe somewhat like Wiesel during the Holocaust, but mostly I feel devastation that such a pure treasure in my life is gone. He knew I loved him will all my heart. Why I could not save him? That's one of my questions.

From the depths of this personal horror, the one message that becomes clear is to thank all of you. The only relief I have received is from friends like you. Your lovely cards, long letters, flowers, trips to Connecticut, participation in Pat's funeral, organization of a memorial service at the Stanford Center in Berlin, and now another memorial service at Stanford has moved us over and over again to tears. Yes, we are in pain and your demonstrations have sharpened that pain, but that is a good thing I am learning and that is why I'm so looking forward to seeing you at the service on March 18th. You have helped me to answer a few questions. Did he have good friends? Was he loved? Yes, thanks to you. Your memorial service will give me the reminders I desperately need even though I will constantly be wondering where Pat is when I'm out there. Without them I sink into unanswered questions and personal pain. I'm learning that shared pain is easier. I am deeply grateful that you have allowed me to do that and I take comfort from reading about yours.

Pat wanted more than us in his life. He would accept nothing less. I hope we can take some solace that he wanted more because he was the dearest person on earth and he needed to give his love to another, but I am still miserable.

Sincerely,

Lisette Rimer, Pat's mom

2006-02-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. I'm happy to have this blog as a place to share thoughts and memories, and sometime in the future I'll begin adding my own comments and pictures here. Pat was a dear friend, and I loved him very much.

Right now, I'd like to try and find contact information for Pat's parents. I have his grandparents' phone number, but I'd really like to be able to send my condolences to his parents, sisters and family in Connecticut. If anyone has their mailing address, I would appreciate you sending it to rsands @ gmail.com.

Thanks and best wishes.
Ryan Sands

Informal get-together this Friday

2006-02-14T10:13:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Sirisha, a close friend of Pat's from his freshman dorm, sent out an email to a big group from the dorm suggesting that Pat's friends come together this Friday by Lake Lag. I asked if I could send along the invitation and she thought it would be a good idea. Maybe people could add their RSVPs as comments instead of emailing.

"Dear friends,

As many of you might have already heard, our fellow Juniperan Pat Wood passed away last week in Berlin, Germany:

http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=19305&repository=0001_article.

This comes as a great shock and heartbreak to us, especially given the
many memories we have of Pat and our experiences together. Therefore,
we will be holding an informal get-together this Friday, February 17
at 9 pm at the Lake Lag fireplace (intersection of Mayfield and
Lomita) to honor Pat, and to talk and share. We sincerely hope you can
join us.

Of course, please do pass along this information to others from
Junipero who might have been left off this list (or whose email
addresses are incorrect), and those who were close to Pat and who
would like to participate. Also, please do RSVP to this email if you
plan to come just so we can get an idea of how many people to expect.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday."

Laundry and fun in 2004

2006-02-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

Joe called me on Friday night to tell me the news about Pat. This definitely came as a shock to me - and I will miss him.

I met Pat in 2004, when I was living in Munich. He had come down with his class from Berlin, and Joe introduced us. He came out with a few friends of mine to a party and really had a good time. While he was clearly an intelligent guy, he had an air of fun and curiousity about him. He told me that he would be living in Munich for the summer while he was working for BMW. We exchanged contact information and agreed to meet up once he got down to Munich. As an fellow American living in Munich, I had found my way about a bit, so I offered to help him.

About a week after Pat came to live in Munich for the summer, Joe contacted me to ask if Pat could borrow my washer and dryer to do his laundry. This became our weekly ritual - Sundays, Pat would come over, do his laundry and we would catch up - watch a dvd, hang out in the park, cook something. We'd meet up during the week from time to time and go to dinner, or cinema, or a drinks and party.

And that began our friendship - he was one of those people that I could count on for regularity - always willing to be up for doing something. He had keys to my flat and would be there, even if I wasn't. One weekend, I'd gone away for the weekend, and stopped by on Sunday to do his laundry (as was the ritual). He had to call me to find some videos on my computer of some American television programmes.

I'm attempting to upload some photos from a birthday party of a friend of mine that he came to. He was always easy going and got along with everyone. I also have some photos that he had loaded onto my computer one day to burn to a CD. I will try to include one of those.

Take care Pat. I will miss you.

missing you

2006-02-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

I feel so lucky to have met Pat in the city that he loved, Berlin. Living a couple blocks away from him in Kreuzberg ensured that I always had some company on the U-Bahn home, and it was company I treasured so much. Sunday morning brunches at the french toast place with Pat and Ryan and Steve were always highlighted by Pat's ability to find the wit and humor in every situation. Also, the inevitability of him spilling a glass of water or mistakenly flipping a fork full of food at me always left the door open to tease him to no end, which I of course took full advantage of.

While everyone else would sit around the Stanford Center and watch the BBC English news, Patrick would be sitting in the other room, or on a nice day out on the deck, reading a German novel, dictionary in hand. I remember the day he found out the word for twin - Zwilling - and he threw it into conversations whenever possible; it was kind of silly how excited he got about the word except it made perfect sense hearing how much he talked about his sister.

It was clear that Pat's family meant so much to him; he was so excited when his grandparents came to Berlin, and really loved being able to share the city with them. This picture is from one of Franz's walking tours of the city that his grandparents came to.

Our relationship only grew back here at Stanford, and we both came to depend on each other a lot. I am glad I was able to be there for him just as he was always there for me. It meant so much to me when he came out to watch a full day of my frisbee tournament last year, and I only wish I could have been there for him this past week.

I miss you, Patrick, and I love you, and I wish you could see the outpouring of love and emotion that your death has generated around the world.

Ich hoffe, dass du Frieden gefunden hast.

Memories of Pat

2006-02-09T08:21:00.000-08:00

hi all,

I'm a friend of Pat's from Junipero and onward, a fellow math guy. Lauren Schneider and Pat's mom had the idea to set up a blog where people could post photos, stories, memories or anything about Pat, so here it is!

Mike Love