Remembering Jo Ann Pattillo (1936-2021), Jan's cousin.

Even when I was a toddler, Jo Ann’s place in my heart was as a playmate and friend. She was like the big sister I never had. As soon as I learned to walk, I toddled backward for fun (probably a skill Jo Ann taught me). When she and my brother Jimmy sat on the floor playing monopoly or canasta, I would toddle backward and plop my bloomers down right in the middle of their game board. Jimmy would call out, “Mama, Janice is in our Monopoly game again!”

The best part of Thanksgiving turkey dinner was the after-dessert breaking of the pully bone. My tiny 4-year old fingers fit better on the Y but hers were stronger. She laughed heartily if she – or I - won; it was a big game for both of us.

Just because I sat on the wooden ice-cream maker bucket topped with newspapers and towels while she cranked the handle, I got the first bowl of fresh banana ice cream with a few maverick ice crystals on top.

On hot, sunny summer South Texas afternoons, I went out with her to ride her horse. While she ran the barrels, it was a good place for me to play in the sand, catch horney toads, and make string leashes for them.

She taught me to swim, to dive, to water ski, and to hold family dear.

On Thanksgivings we were all family. We fondly remember Thanksgiving dinner, promptly at noon, and done in time for the Texas A&M-Univ of Texas game and, in later years, the Dallas Cowboys. There may have been 40 people drop in, everybody brought their heritage recipes, everyone was welcome. She set doors on sawhorses so that everyone could sit at the same table, including children, because “we’re all family” - even those who walked in for the first time.

When I sat at her bedside during her last days, surrounded by clown figurines and clown dolls, even when she was no longer responsive and had grown deaf, I knew she could hear me. I asked her if there was anything she wanted to tell me. She opened her eyes to a non-seeing squint, puckered her lips, and smacked a kiss into the air.

Most people who knew Jo Ann remember her cheerfulness and kindness. She touched countless lives through her teaching, volunteering, and leadership, through her friendship and love. I remember she taught me how to play.

I went to my first family Thanksgiving at Jo Ann Pattillo’s house before I became family.

It was 2003. Jan and I were dating, long-distance, while I still lived in New Jersey. I flew to Texas; Jan’s son and daughter-in-law drove down to San Antonio from their home near Austin; and together we drove on down to Robstown for Thanksgiving.

There I was welcomed by Jo Ann Pattillo. Which meant, just like everyone else, I got put to work: setting up chairs, rounding up serving utensils, and bringing platter after dish after casserole – much of it traditional family recipes – to the table.

Even though there were more than twenty of us present, there was no buffet line. At Jo Ann’s house, we ate family-style; all the food passed hand-to-hand around the long table, as we filled our plates to overflowing. Several years earlier, when Jo Ann had a family room added on to the back of the house, she made sure it opened into the dining room. That way, the dining table could always be extended.

Jo Ann never married and had no children. Or so many would say. Although she gave birth to no children, she had countless children: in the classrooms where she taught, on the teams that she coached, at the park where she worked. Nephews and nieces and stray potential cousins-by-marriage (like me) all found a place at her table.

Year after year, the family gathered at Jo Ann’s table. Year after year she extended her welcome. Sometimes there were a dozen, sometimes close to thirty. It didn’t matter. It was always thanksgiving at Jo Ann’s always-expandable table of welcome.

This morning when I opened my mail, a monthly publication* had posted a Mary Oliver poem on the front page. Could it have come through Jo Ann's voice? She would want us to let go of the grief and now hold love and memories against our bones. (JD)

*poem from "In Blackwater Woods" printed in Friends of Silence, May 2021.

Please share Reflection freely by forwarding any issue (forward in its entirety), but remember to respect copyright laws by not altering, copying, or reproducing Reflection, text or photos, whole or in part, without written permission.

Copyright (c) 2021 Soul Windows Ministries