I'm going to share a letter I wrote to my friend days after his wife Patti passed away from her valiant years long battle with cancer.
Her obituary can also be found here:
https://lfpress.remembering.ca/obituary/patti-vickers-bond-1089475265/#obituary
(This letter has been edited to respect the family's privacy)
It’s been over a week and I’m still trying to come to terms with the news, I can’t imagine what her loved ones are going though and the overwhelming emotions that accompany what’s happened. I recall hearing years ago briefly from someone, somewhere, that Patti was sick, but nothing further as to the extent and depth of it and admittedly wasn’t alarmed and respected privacy. Patti was… to put it simply: amazing. There’s an overwhelming abundance of accolades to attribute to her and what she meant to so many people, and I’d like to have the opportunity to share with you what Patti meant to me, someone who knew her from the convention community and occasional chats online. Patti impacted my life in so many positive ways for the comparatively brief amount of time I interacted with her, thus my thoughts are with her family, and close friends who are more profoundly feeling such enormous loss. We all grieve with you and we all have varying ways to deal with grief and in this I’d like to share how I feel Patti has left a wonderful legacy and influence on my life.
I’m writing this because Patti has been in my thoughts daily since learning the news, and it’s amazing to recall how much of an impact she had on my life over the decades I knew her and was honoured to have her as a friend. I believe she was very selective about whom she called a friend and I’m honoured to have been counted as such. A few years ago we also lost Keith, another great in our community, he too as very supportive of the fandom community and to me personally during a dark time in my life almost twenty years ago, and so was Patti. At the time of his passing and memorial, the recent loss of my mother, personal matters, and concerns regarding the pandemic prevented me to show my support beyond writing a couple paragraphs to honour his memory – though Patti did enjoy what I shared. I have a need in my heart to write down what an incredible influence Patti was in my life – and it all began a long time ago at a convention far, far away.
It may be hard to believe, but I don’t go out of my way to have a whole bunch of friends, maybe it’s just my nature or something bred in the bone from living on my own since I was a teenager finishing high school, stuck with being as pragmatic as possible with limited resources. I was blessed enough to have had someone really great in my life who is still very close to me to this day – and that fellow teenager pretty much insisted I join them going to a star trek convention on Dixon Road in July 1994… it may as well have been a different country given my limited access at the time. And I went, and took the first steps into a whole different world – and finally found my people. After decompressing from the weekend at Toronto Trek 8 I was still amazed at the experience and knew I wanted to continue being involved with fandom (not knowing what it was at the time, and meeting people geekier than me was so very incredible), it was difficult to express to people unaccustomed to the community about it, most reactions were akin to a dismissive ‘oh, that…’.
… and now whenever fandom events are brought up, the more common reaction is an enthusiastic “Oh, THAT!”.
I have no hesitation in saying Patti was absolutely an essential key in making possible great things in the fandom community with her leadership, ability to organize, inspire, make things happen, and so many awesome attributes. To me the greatest part of going to conventions were the people I met and got to work with – a few people I know got to understand what I meant by this when they too finally tried out going to a convention. Patti was among the best of the best, I always appreciated what she did and respected her – especially if I didn’t agree with her from time to time. She was a dynamic presence that could not be quantified, but was undeniable with such amazing presence. It came as no surprise to me that she was still finding ways to contribute to conventions, the regret of not having the chance to say hi to her last May is lessened by knowing she was doing for others like so few other could.
As time would go on I’d get to interact with Patti more and more through the convention, related gatherings, and of course organizational meetings. I once recall responding with a dark joke to a topic at a meeting sometime in the 2002/2003 era, and after the boisterous and guilty laughter settled, Patti shouted ‘Hit him!’ to someone sitting near me, and in the span of a second or two I saw someone I knew pondering making a poor life choice and the look of shock on Patti’s face amounting to ‘what have I done?!’, all this happening in the blink of an eye, those moments that are so quick and fleeting in action yet remain due to our familiarity and camaraderie leaving pleasant memories. I wrote that with a smile on my face and took a break remembering more fun times at concom meetings, imagine fun at meetings – yeah that happened and Patti was a big part of that happening as well.
Patti was not only incredible for her inherent nature to contribute in so many ways , especially building a community – she was there for people in dark times, and she was there for me. In a dark moment in my life she took the time to listen, understand, empathize, and above all else display compassion – during a time when I was also in conflict with those who were directly and indirectly involved in actions they shouldn’t have been. Patti cared, took it upon herself to seek reason and truth, and inevitably act with amazing grace to resolve an issue brought upon by a lack of oversight and appropriate direction. If it wasn’t for her I’d probably completely have ended all involvement with the community – she gave hope and through her efforts and a few others necessary actions were taken and the community was made safer because of it. Compassion is so hard to find, and for Patti I feel she employed it just as easily as most of us breathe, she did all that the same time my family home burned down while my mom was providing transport for people with accessibility needs. Above so many incredible abilities Patti employed, her ability to act with compassion was her most incredible capability – no, gift. In a world where it seems people care less for others, Patti was truly wonderful. When I was seeking to get a memorial bench for my mom, Patti was so instrumental in making that happen by not only using discretionary funds but also getting the word out about the fundraiser to help lighten the load of paying for it. It remains a matter of pride to tell people that the first group of people to donate towards making that happen were people I met by going to conventions.
My perspective is obviously from someone who knew her through fandom, and my experiences from that context , and I am so happy for what little time I got to talk, share, laugh, and relate with. The loss is great, she leaves behind a wonderful legacy and inspiration to carry forward. Nobody can quantify each other’s sorrow and we’re all going to experience every emotion possible – and that’s important as we try to heal as we can in our own ways. Taking stock of the range of emotions I’m left with one last overwhelming feeling: gratitude. I am so very thankful to have known Patti and her overwhelming positive influence on my life, her legacy is how she contributed to being such an amazing force for goodness in this world and carrying that forward honours her memory. Patti’s greatness is not just the abundant laurels justifiably bestowed upon her, above all others was her compassion for others.
Thank you Patti, I miss you conboss.
