December 18, 2017
December 18, 2017
It is not getting any easier living without the greatest mother in the world. My best friend. My loyal confidant. My strength. I miss you Mom.
Patricia Florence Goss, affectionately known as Patt, was born on December 17,1933. A courageous breast cancer survivor for 8 years, she passed away from complications of lung cancer and a fall on July 7, 2017 at 83 years old.
Patt attended Our Lady of Loretto High School in Chicago, IL. Thrilled to work and earn her own way, she was always an independent soul determined not to be held back by the norms of women of her day. She continued her education and proudly landed a position with the FBI in the heart of downtown Chicago. She was truly a stunning beauty, and when she finally found her "ideal man" she decided to settle down. She was excited and determined to make motherhood her life's profession. She married handsome Lieutenant Robert Samuel Simmons, on December 29th,1956 at St. Killian's Church in Chicago. After joining him in San Diego during his tour in the Navy, they first returned to the Midwest to Dearborn Heights, MI and lived in the auto enclaves surrounding Detroit. She supported his career as a Manufacturing Engineer for the Ford Motor Company until his retirement.
Patt and Bob were very settled on their heart's desire to have and raise a very large, very happy family. They were blessed with seven wonderful, healthy children. There was clearly nothing more important in life to her than giving her all to her family, and she simply never stopped!
She was the ultimate Super Mom/Wife who devoted her life to both her husband and each of her seven children. Patt gave them all more than seemed humanly possible. She always impressed the value of intelligence, hard work, education, and respect of others in all of her children. She showed them the importance of having a close family that you can always rely on. She passed peacefully, and was surrounded by them all in the end.
Even at 83, she never missed a birthday, not for her children or for any of her beloved twelve grandchildren. She was always a delight to be with, right to the end. There was nothing that made her happier than to have the entire family gathered together whatever the occasion, preferably at home, overlooking the lake. She loved them all and everyone who joined the family with them: the in-laws, their in-laws, everyone’s friends, and most of all the grandkids. She adored all her grandchildren.
In 1983, she and Bob moved to Commerce Township to fulfill their life’s dream of living on a lake. Having a place where the entire extended family could gather for dinners, fishing, ice skating, BBQs and boating was truly their life's dream. Through Christmas trees, Easter egg hunts and Halloween costumes, she lavished love on them all and made coming together the highlight of everyone’s lives.
She was the magnet that brought everyone together. The center of the enormous family life she and Bob had created. The enormity of the hole that will be left by her absence is inexpressible. The greatest honor the family can bestow upon her memory is to stay together in peace and love, bound by her memory. Bound by this: her greatest wish of all, that they all love one another and stay close throughout their lives especially after she is gone.
Patricia leaves behind not only her adoring husband of 60 years, Robert Simmons Sr. but also her seven children: Teresa, Sharon (James), Catherine (James), Robert Jr. (Kim), Elizabeth (Derek), Michael (Kristen) and Steven (Donna).
Also, she is sadly leaving the lights of her life, her twelve beloved grandchildren: Kelley and Gregory, Maxwell, brothers Parker, Austin and Macauley, Connor and Izabella, Dylan and Taylor, and Nicolette and Mila. To them she was Cookie "Grammie”, as she always seemed to magically have a fresh hot supply for them, and she will be terribly missed by them all.
Her own mother, Florence, sadly died of stomach cancer quite young and only lived to see four of her grandchildren. Her father Eugene, however lived to be 96. She is survived by her brother Gene, a very brave retired Air Force Pilot, and her many nieces and nephews scattered around the country, whom she dearly loved. Readying her spot in heaven are her elder brother Bill Goss of California, and her beloved sister Mary Jean Cody of Orland Park, IL.
She will be remembered by everyone whose lives she touched. We pray that she will always watch over us and guide our lives with the huge love that made her own life so very full and so very wonderful.
Should friends desire, in lieu of flowers, her family suggests a donation to:
Henry Ford Hospital Hospice, West Bloomfield
30200 Telegraph Road, Suite 121
Bingham Farms, MI 48025
LINK
_____________
She would ask that you please do something
- touch a life, do a kindness, pay it forward,
give the gift of your time to someone in need.
Most important of all
- give all the love that you have to your
own family,
and hold them precious to your heart.
Make them the most important of all.
That’s what she would have wanted,
- most of all.
That’s what she still asks of us
- most of all.
7/7/17
Tributes
Leave a tribute
July 9, 2017
July 9, 2017
I didn't know Patricia very well, but I will never forget when I first met her at Treza's house in California. We were having a fun time at Treza's house (one of many) and Patricia was visiting. She joined our luncheon and was one of the gals. She was a great lady and full of fun. I will never forget that day! Patricia touched many lives and will be sadly missed., My deepest sympathy to my dearest friend Treza and all of the family. Irene
July 5, 2017
July 5, 2017
She gave us our love of flowers, our love of family, our love of home.
She made us remodelers and made us always believe "we could do it!"
She made us every little bit of who we are.
We love you Mumma, we always will.
Your T. and all her sibs
She made us remodelers and made us always believe "we could do it!"
She made us every little bit of who we are.
We love you Mumma, we always will.
Your T. and all her sibs
Leave a Tribute
Recent Tributes
December 18, 2017
December 18, 2017
It is not getting any easier living without the greatest mother in the world. My best friend. My loyal confidant. My strength. I miss you Mom.
July 9, 2017
July 9, 2017
I didn't know Patricia very well, but I will never forget when I first met her at Treza's house in California. We were having a fun time at Treza's house (one of many) and Patricia was visiting. She joined our luncheon and was one of the gals. She was a great lady and full of fun. I will never forget that day! Patricia touched many lives and will be sadly missed., My deepest sympathy to my dearest friend Treza and all of the family. Irene
July 5, 2017
July 5, 2017
She gave us our love of flowers, our love of family, our love of home.
She made us remodelers and made us always believe "we could do it!"
She made us every little bit of who we are.
We love you Mumma, we always will.
Your T. and all her sibs
She made us remodelers and made us always believe "we could do it!"
She made us every little bit of who we are.
We love you Mumma, we always will.
Your T. and all her sibs
Gallery
Post Bussell Wedding
Throop St 2
The Goss Girls
MJ
Lake
MJ's Wedding 4
Mary Jean & Patt_edited-1
Goss
20140615_184604
Recent stories
Speak to Her
July 5, 2017
The only thing I know for sure about my mother dying today, is that I will always speak to her.
The one thing I know, is that my Mum always talked to her own Mum, even though she was long gone. She always chatted with her sister Mary Jean, and it often had occurred to me that maybe email prepared them for this time a little better. Neither act ever seemed to strike either of us as a terribly one sided conversation somehow... We always felt that we knew they were there listening. Putting in a good word for us. Trying to help somehow. We just knew they did. We saw signs. We knew they were there. Somewhere.
I've so often thought that if I did not have my mother to talk to, I simply did not know what I would do.
Well, I guess I know now what I will do.
Speak to her.
An Irish Funeral Prayer
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Everything remains as it was.
The old life that we lived so fondly together
is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no sorrow in your tone.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that
we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because
I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting,
when we meet again.
Gone From My Sight
by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, “There, she is gone”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me — not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone,”
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
And that is dying…
Death comes in its own time, in its own way.
Death is as unique as the individual experiencing it.