Sunday, March 13, 2016

David Lauderdale writes about Pat Conroy



David Lauderdale's  (dlauderdale@islandpacket.com) wonderfully powerful, emotional piece about Pat Conroy from The Island Packet

Pat Conroy died the way he lived, and the way he wrote.
That’s how friends closest to the best-selling author describe the emotional blur between the Feb. 15 announcement that he had pancreatic cancer and his burial March 8 in a Gullah cemetery on St. Helena Island.
“What a loss,” his wife, Cassandra King Conroy, said Friday.
“What a loss.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet, I guess, but it will.”
IN THIS QUIET, INLAND CEMETERY BENEATH TALL PINES, PAT CONROY CONTINUES TO SPEAK TO THE WORLD.
Conroy’s death was larger than life, with 4 million people clicking on his website in recent days just to be close.
It was dramatic, with Conroy and loved ones exchanging emotional goodbyes three different times before the Irish eyes they say never lost their sparkle were closed for good at his creekside home in Beaufort on March 4.
Conroy’s bold fight showed as he was moved about from the Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center in Jacksonville, Fla., to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston and the Beaufort Memorial Hospital.
A sign of the well-chronicled Conroy family strife (his sister Carol did not attend the funeral Mass) was overcome by waves of redemption. His formerly “lost daughter” Susannah was by his side. In 2010 he had dedicated “My Reading Life” to her, writing: “Know this, I love you with my heart and always will. Your return to my life would be one of the happiest moments I could imagine.”
All four of his daughters and other surviving siblings — Jim, Tim and Mike Conroy and Kathy Harvey — were there with their children and grandchildren.


Read the rest of the David Lauderdale's piece here - http://www.islandpacket.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/david-lauderdale/article65666537.html
David Lauderdale: 843-706-8115, @ThatsLauderdale
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