If there is one thing certain about stress, and about despair, it’s that it will inevitably show who you really are. And the amazing thing about Pat is that the despair and stress never revealed anything ugly about him. That astounded me, because when things got hard and the kids were being utterly disrespectful, I would become an ugly individual at times. I would lose it and tell them they were being spoiled brats. But Pat was restrained. He had fortitude.
