Pat and Tom

by Frank

No blog about Pat would be complete without mentioning her other half.  She was married to Thomas Kuhr for nearly 48 years. They were a team known simply as Pat & Tom. Those two three letter names were always said together. They flowed. Pat & Tom (I should note that 4 people on the planet didn’t call them Pat & Tom they called them Mom & Dad. Hey, two three letter names.  It works.) 

We never lived just down the street from each other so when we got together it wasn’t just for lunch. It was for a day or a weekend and a few trips together including a ten day trip to England for which Pat and Tom created the master travel plan. The trip included three of her children, two of mine, my mom, me, my wife, Mickey Jo, and, of course, Pat & Tom. They booked three apartments in the same building and no AirBnB to help. 

The trip was planned down to the smallest detail by Pat & Tom.  Well almost to the smallest detail. There was the matter of knowing how to get to the church where their eldest, Tom got married. (This is the Tom who married Sam. They are known as Tom & Sam or Mom & Dad depending on who’s calling them.) Somehow I got blamed for their tardiness to the ceremony but that’s another story.

Pat & Tom threw great parties. In keeping with my father’s vision of family, they threw a nearly yearly “family” party. Staying at Pat & Tom’s we were always around to watch the two of them put the whole thing together—morning till evening. While Pat prepared the house, Tom did the running around--poetry.  It was always great to see everyone and Pat & I took in as much info as possible so that over Tea that evening we could compare notes and have some laughs. And Tom by then was sleeping on his chair in the family room. Hey, he worked hard. 

But the hardest part for Tom was after Pat got ill. He became the rock. He took care of my sister over her last years and I can never express to him just how much that meant to me. Her dream to move closer to her west coast children and grandchildren took her away from her east coast brother. I can’t blame her for that I would have done the same. I just couldn’t visit her as much as I would have liked. Thank you, Tom for looking after her. My sister chose wisely.