From the person who really knew him.

To Everyone on Fair Patton's Forum:

I am late in paying tribute to my dear friend Ol' Possum, whom I always just referred to as Possum. I have been on the road with limited internet access, but I want everyone who knew him at all to know what a blessing he was to me and my family.

I ran across Possum in the summer of '06 when I was still trying to earn income on surf sites. He was requesting help in getting moved to a place he could afford to rent which had high-speed internet access. I sent him a small "loan" telling him I didn't want to be paid back, as when the time came to do so he should just pay it forward. I tried to keep apprised of how his move was going and at some point learned he was in Kalispell, Montana, just four hours from Great Falls where my husband Larry and I lived.

After we made a few get acquainted phone calls to Possum in Kalispell, Larry and I felt that he was an answer to our prayers for a house/dog sitter so we could travel together more often. So we drove up to Kalispell and collected him, and he was happily ensconced in our large basement family room until his death.

Possum loved animals and plants. He watered the flowers, playing with our corgi dog, Punkie, who would chase the water stream and get good exercise. When our cat Pepper suffered from a nasty, draining abscess, Possum nursed him back to health while we were on the road. Sometimes he even took care of another friend's corgi as well. We considered Possum a member of our family.

Possum reminded me of "the traveling gnome" in the commercials, so we would sometimes introduce him to people as our "basement gnome." And sometimes I referred to him as my "ranch hand." How can you describe a relationship like we had? We felt we knew him forever, from the moment we met him.

When our granddaughter Chandler, now nine, visited, he joked with her about how he had trained Punkie to keep all the "vernicious knibs" away from our property. He was full of puns and jokes and twists of wordplay, and most days would come upstairs to tell me "Possum's obscure fact of the day." He could do a great British accent as well as an East Indian imitation.

Larry enjoyed having Possum watch football and car racing with him, which I refused to do. Although Possum wasn't a raving Bronco or Indy-500 fan, they did enjoy this together. The both loved Gary Larson cartoons, and made each other laugh uproariously.

Possum was extremely knowledgeable and intelligent about almost everything. When Larry decided to use filtered vegetable oil as fuel, Possum helped with the filtering, and figured out many time and money-saving innovations for the project.

When Larry was killed in a freak accident in Washington in early July '07, I was able to leave quickly to make arrangements, knowing everything at home was in Possum's capable hands. When I returned, Possum made me his special project, watching countless movies with me, letting me choose them from Netflix, laughing and crying with me. Although I made sure he had all the privacy he needed, he was always available to be helpful and to cheer me up. Because he was taking care of the home front, I was able to spend the worst of the the winter in Sun City, Arizona with a woman friend.

Larry and I had nagged Possum constantly to pursue getting on disability. He had gone through this process twice and been turned down, and he refused to try again. It was hard watching his heart disease grow progressively worse, and towards the end all of us -- by then my 19-yr-old granddaughter and another young renter were also in my home -- were terribly alarmed at how out of breath he would be just coming up the stairs. He had recently promised me he would send for his birth certificate and get a Montana ID.

Possum was a great blessing in my life. Larry and I both felt we had known him always, and I think he felt the same way about us. I shall miss him terribly.

The last movie we watched together was "August Rush." Possum kept saying, "When are we going to watch "July Slowdown?" I usually had to stop and think to figure out his play on words. We watched it with Marvin, the other tenant. We all loved that movie. Possum and I were both crying at the end. Possum had such a wonderfully soft heart.

Here is the poem Possum read at Larry's memorial. I believe they are together, laughing again the way they made each other laugh here on earth.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!

Mary Frye (1932)

See you soon, dear friend!

Carol Maurer

All your past except its beauty is gone and nothing is left but a blessing
~A Course In Miracles