I first set eyes upon young Patricia Saliba the Tuesday after Labor Day, the first day of school 1946.  It was in the cavernous first/second class classroom of St. Benedict School, Cambridge, Ohio.  We remained classmates and great friends the next twelve years and friends-at-a-distance the rest of our lives.  With her ever infectious smile, Pat was the girl who was everyone's friend, always.  It was impossible not to admire her for her spunk and many talents, including her keyboard artistry.  (Truth in advertising:  I loved her mother's Lebanese cooking, which was so exotically delicious to an Irish-American kid in a small midwestern town in the 1940s and 1950s.)
After high school, our paths diverged widely, never to cross again until the 1990s when I managed to track her down and we shared a few leisurely lunches together in Marina del Rey and Manhattan Beach, which she was able to reciprocate a little later when she visited Bay Village, close to our home in the Cleveland area.  It was a great blessing to witness once again that infectious smile and great spunk of hers.
The world is definitely a better and brighter world for her living amongst us.  I have no doubt that God has reserved a special place just for her.
Her son and daughter must certainly know that the two of them were the great joys of their mother's life.  I'm sorry I never had the opportunity to meet them in person.