Pat says he doesn't want us to think of him as a hero, and I'm inclined to both honor his wishes and to agree with him in principle. Death comes to us all, but if it almost always does not make of us heroes, there still is such a thing - just as in living well - as dying well, provided we are given the opportunity (time and mental and physical ability) to exercise a choice in the matter. In that regard, Pat is surely a role model and a valuable teacher.
In my experience it is probably quite a rare thing in most cases for family and friends, beyond possibly spouses never mind online acquaintances - to be granted this sort of unvarnished (no, not completely; I understand that) relating-to concerning their loved one's or friend's thoughts both mundane and profound as life draws to an end. I suspect the feeling that Pat is heroic must be prompted by the realization within many readers, myself included, that we probably wouldn't want to or be able to do the same work as he's done here in this respect (especially those of us still struggling with the living well part).
I think it's primarily this aspect of Pat's example that has touched me most deeply. That I am touched by him is not due, for instance, to a shared love of the same music, though in theory some of that might be discovered to apply (yeah, I do like Neil Young). It is certainly not because he is a fellow audiophile, little of a true believer as I am. And it is not even because I feel I know him a tiny bit from the forums, or had corresponded with him couple of times by email prior to learning of his disease on this thread. The fact is, and will have to remain, that Pat and I are basically strangers to each other, and who knows whether, if we had ever met, we wouldve actually related all that famously or not. Most likely there have been other Audiogon members I've chatted with on the forums in the past who have died without my ever having known about it or been affected by their deaths. I myself have dropped off the forums in the past year whats the difference between that and if I had died suddenly to anybody who used to read what I wrote?
What touches me most then about Pat's journey is his unstinting ability (he has a lot of that) and willingness (which never ceases to amaze me) to share it with strangers such as myself, and how that helps illuminate for me the experiences which went basically unreported by some of my own loved ones who have died of cancer, but who must have undergone journeys similar to Pat's. I wonder if Pat's children in particular will sense as I do the possible significance, for their future understanding of their father's experience and aspirations, of the resource laid down so honestly by him in this thread. I can only imagine having such a record of my mother's thoughts and feelings in her time of dying, but considering Pat's helps me better imagine hers, and that is of value to me way beyond the limited extent of his and my internet familiarity.
Permit me to diverge and indulge in some dime-store philosophizing: When I was a younger guy, there was a phrase which I guess had then been in popular lit-crit fashion that I came across a lot in reading, "the human condition". For as often as one saw the expression deployed, I was always intrigued by how it seemed never to actually be defined as if the reader should automatically know what was meant, despite that at first blush, any definition for the human condition would appear to require a rather lengthy and involved explanation - though somehow the construction did feel as though it nicely captured a certain pathos fundamental to our existence. (I didn't and still don't know the exact origin or intended meaning of the line, if indeed there was one that can be pointed to; perhaps someone here will be able to enlighten me.) Nevertheless, the phrase was evocative and caught my imagination with the question it begged, so after a while I decided I'd try to come up with some kind personal definition for it, if I could.
Were we merely talking about a list of attributes that allegedly distinguish what it is to be a member of the species homo sapiens? That seemed entirely too prosaic and fraught with technicalities and qualifications - not to mention other definitions - while missing the essential gestalt of the phrase. I decided there were two conditions which had to be satisfied in order to arrive at just what "the human condition" entailed: whatever it was, it must apply only to humans and to no other earthly creature, so far as we can tell; and it must apply in equal measure to every sentient person, no matter what their circumstance.
Well, long story short, after the better part of two decades with the question filtering in the back of my brain, and rejecting, for various reasons which I won't go into here, all of the seemingly obvious choices (many of them unnecessarily complex, contingent, or based upon faulty assumptions about what is really unique or universal to our kind - not just today, but ever since we presumably 'became' human), I finally, only a couple of years ago, settled on my mark: to me, "the human condition" very simply boils down to the foreknowledge of one's own eventual death. Thats an awareness with which I believe no other species is afflicted (some may know what it is for other individuals to die, but not, I dont think, themselves before the time comes, and anyway certainly not that this personal death is inevitable), nor the hominid predecessors to ourselves, prior to some milestone in the mists of time that probably predated even the advent of formal spoken language or the harnessing of fire (but not walking upright), and may have marked the fundamental turning point in the acquiring of our humanity. (End of pseudo-anthropological meditation.)
In this human condition of ours there's foreknowledge of ones eventual death, and then there's really knowing; I get the feeling we may never have the potential to be so human as [if and] when we know we're coming down that final home stretch, so to speak. (I said potential; not everyone can keep ahead of their depression and fears, or retains all their faculties. But that's true even for those of us not expecting to die soon.) So maybe Pat, in his good grace and generosity and forbearance, is - if not a hero - then just that much more human than you or I can hope to be at a different juncture in our lives. Pat inspires us to embrace this quality through sharing in his story and vision, and we learn from him and so become wiser and hopefully more humane people. Which, if I were attaching meaning (and I'm the sort who considers all meaning to be attached), are the kinds of qualities to attain that I think living life well must be all about in the end. Thanks Pat, and peace to you and yours.
