It's been a hectic week so I couldn't post earlier, but the memorial service went very well (aside from the old priest who I thought kinda half-assed it). I actually arrived a little late so the service had already started by the time I got there, but when I walked in I was immediately blown away by how many people were there. They could've sold tickets to that thing. I'm sure it's not even that crowded on Sunday's. And right up in front of everything was the Capital P Standing Tall.
Pat's brother, Paul, more than made up for the lazy priest with his eulogy. He started off by saying that the entire family had chosen to wear purple for the service because Pat always wore purple (another P/Prince connection). Then he shared random memories from Pat's family and friends about the kind of person Pat was, and Pat certainly wasn't any different in person than he was on here. Like one time when his brother asked Pat if he would give him some new music to listen to, so in classic Sactown fashion Pat handed him a hard drive with 10,000 songs on it. And when asked for a list of Pat's movie collection, Pat handed over a 50-page excel spreadsheet complete with a description of the movie/genre/director/actors/awards...etc. I could totally see him doing that, can't you? Or stories about how much he loved Christmas and how thoughtful he was about getting gifts for his nieces and nephews. And, of course, when someone asked Pat what he wanted for christmas, Pat would hand over a 50-page excel spreadsheet of his wish list, in order, and complete with prices and a link to find each one on Amazon. Or how he painstakingly digitalized his family's old home movies for his grandparents, which apparently took countless hours to finish. Sound familiar?
Paul ended the eulogy talking about the Forum and how blown away the family was for our support. They knew he really liked this group People Under The Stairs but no one knew his level of involvement or how much he meant to Thes and KK and to us. And no one knew about The Point Of The Rhyme and the countless hours he spent transcribing PUTS lyrics, but I don't think anyone was surprised. Paul ended things by reading Pat's super hero quote from the book. He couldn't get through the quote without choking up, and I admit I got misty-eyed myself.
As I was leaving the service to go the reception I saw Thes walking over to our flower arrangement and taking some pictures. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to bother him at the moment and figured I'd see him at the reception, but I didn't end up running into him there. I did get a chance to talk to Paul, who was very appreciative of everything we had done to honor his brother. They brought over the Capital P to the reception, and had all the books laid out next to the collages of pictures of Pat. Everyone there wanted to check out the book and catch a glimpse of this new aspect of Pat's life that they didn't know about before.
It really was a great thing that we were able to do this for Pat's family. It gave them something new to discover about him, and in such a dark time really was a shining light on the positive influence Pat had on everyone he knew.
Great Job SLC Head and YoYoPo. Pat would've been proud.
P.S. I do have a couple of pics I could put up but I'm not sure how to do that from my phone, if someone can PM me and show me how to do that. Though really, the pics are basically the same as the ones already up here.