Patrick Alan Leonard

Obituary

Patrick Alan Leonard, 54, of Sheridan, died Wednesday, February 4, 2004, at Memorial Hospital, following a lengthy illness.

His body has been donated to the University of Colorado Medical School. Memorial services will be held Friday, February 6, 2004, at 11:00 am by Rev. Don Derryberry at the First United Methodist Church at 215 West Works in Sheridan.

He was born July 22, 1949, in Longmont, Colorado, the son of Betty Jean (Waldo) and Ralph David Leonard. He grew up in Bairoil and attended high school in Rawlins and Glenrock. He attended Western Community College. Patrick served in the U.S. Army as a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam. He was a guardrail foreman for the Wyoming Department of Transportation until illness forced his retirement.

He married Suzanne Kaye Storck, formerly of Laurel, MT, on January 17, 1983, in Sheridan. He is survived by his wife of Sheridan; a daughter, Gretchan Leonard of Sheridan; sons James (and wife, Paula) of Sacramento, CA and Daniel of Santa Rosa, CA; and daughter, Kara of Santa Rosa; his mother, Betty of Casper; a brother Danny of Laramie; and 6 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his father and two infant children, David and Leanna.

Patrick was an avid fisherman and enjoyed camping trips and being outdoors year round. He collected fossils and artifacts and enjoyed watching and feeding the birds. He coached his sons in YMCA basketball when they were young.

Patrick’s kind and gentle ways affected all who knew him. He had a great love for life, and for a good joke, and as his crippling disease progressed, he remained cheerful and never complained.

Memorials are suggested to the Senior Meals Program. Champion-Ferries Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.

 

My Remembrances of Patrick

Suzanne Leonard
February 6, 2004

The first time I saw Patrick, I knew I was looking at the handsomest man in Wyoming. But I fell in love with him because of his generous heart, his old-fashioned common sense, and his unique sense of humor.

After we had dated for just a short time, he called me aside one night and said, “Suzanne, there’s something you should know about me. I chew tobacco.”

My father chewed tobacco, so I knew there were vices much worse. But I also remember cringing when my dad would leave for work, with a big plug of tobacco under his lip, and give my mother a kiss. So I said, “I don’t mind if you chew, but please don’t ask me to kiss you when you have a chew in your mouth.”

He said, “Dear, the first time you kissed me I had a chew in my mouth.”

We married after knowing each other only for a short time. Everyone thought we were crazy (and we were), and several people asked why we were in such a hurry. At the time we didn’t know why, we just wanted to be together. When Patrick was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 13 months later, we understood why we had married as soon as we did.

Because MS was such a big part of our marriage, I feel I need to talk about it before I can talk about the rest of our life together. The thing about MS that makes it such a difficult disease is that it is progressive. Just when you adjust to the latest change, here comes another one. So over the years we’ve had to make so many adjustments.

But we have tried very hard to keep the promises we made to each other: to always be honest with each other, and to never go to bed angry. Neither of these promises was easy to keep, and many nights we had to stay up very late. But those two promises kept us together in spite of all of the external changes that we experienced.

Over the course of Patrick’s illness I have come to realize that everything and everyone that you come into contact with has the ability to teach you lessons about life, and to make you a better person.

I don't know what lessons God had in mind for Patrick when He gave him MS. But I know what lessons I was supposed to learn. Am I saying that God gave him a debilitating disease to teach me a lesson? No. I'm saying that out of the 3 billion men in the world, God sent me the one man who would be sick for much of our married life, so that I would learn the lessons that I needed to learn in order to become a better person.

I am not happy that my husband was sick. It has been very painful to watch the progression of his disease. But I'm thankful that he was my husband, and that we shared our lives together, even though it isn't the life that either one of us would have chosen before we married. Each day we chose to enjoy our lives together in spite of the difficulties.

And Patrick did choose to live happily ever after every day, up until his last day. He enjoyed a very simple life. He never wanted to be anything more (or anything less) than a good person. He never tried to impress anyone, he was just happy to be himself.

And he was happiest when he was outdoors, with a fishing pole in his hand. The last few days we have been looking through some photo albums, and I can’t believe how many pictures of fish we found: Patrick holding up a fish, his friends holding up fish, stringers of fish held up by an unidentified hand, fish laid out in the snow, a sink full of fish, a bathtub full of fish. He took more pictures of fish than he ever took of me! And he always let me know that if I ever asked him to give up fishing, he would divorce me. I never tested to see if this was true, I just accepted it as fact.

We loved to go camping in the mountains, and were able to go camping for several years after he retired. When he couldn’t walk anymore, he would ride his “Scoota” down to the stream and fish for hours.

We were luckier than most people. Patrick was able to retire at an early age, and I was able to work at home, so we spent a lot more time together than most married couples. We had a house big enough for friends and family to come and visit with us for days at a time. And we were able to appreciate the simple things in life.

When I remember Patrick, I will think of him sitting in his Lazy Boy with a bowl of popcorn and the remote control and saying, “Life just doesn’t get any better than this.”