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Pat, every time I look at your picture I smile. How could I not? You have a smile that cannot be faked; a smile born of the warmth and generosity that your friends and colleagues immediately recall when they think about you.
The world changed around you. Gone are the Secretary Supervisors measuring skirts with a wooden ruler and a steely mien for decency’s sake. Gone too is the deafening clatter of the typing pools they patrolled. In their place are computers – devices seeming designed to confound you. How well computers behave for others and how badly they behave when you need to get something done.
But in as much as the world has changed, so you have changed the world. The changes you made did not require computer technology; they required a big heart, a sense of humour and that smile. Devoted to your family; your husband Joe and your two sons – Tommy and Jimmy, you still had goodwill and capacity to care enough for others. Fond as you were of talking about how things were in “your day”, the truth is that every day was your day. Every time your laugh set your colleagues off into hysterics; every time the banter you revelled in gave them a story to tell their families over dinner; every time you consoled or encouraged them you touched their lives. Though I am 3000 miles away from New York, the love you inspired in others and your smile have touched me too.
May God bless and keep you Patricia Florence.