Patty Link always had a close relationship with death. It slept in her basement, sat at her breakfast table, played down the hall and read in the study. She had grown around death, like blooming vines wrapping themselves around a crumbling building. Death was there before she was. Patty’s father was a mortician; he gathered his family of eight in various funeral homes over the years, working as both a mortician and funeral director.
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Link laughed when she thought of growing up in a funeral home, remembering when her father would intimidate potential boyfriends by giving a detailed tour of their home. “They didn’t really come back after that,” she said. Being completely surrounded by death, Patty felt it prepared her for what she was going to face later on in her life.
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When Patty was seven, her mother died. She died slowly, withering into almost nothing before she was gone altogether. “It was a medical malpractice situation. I think.” Patty said. It was as if years passed within seconds, and before anyone knew, the family of six became five. The four children were now left motherless. Link believes that a mother’s presence in her kids’ lives is one of the most important duties a mother can fill, and she was left without it in a time when it was the most important.
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Peggy McBride, Link’s older sister, looked at that time as pivotal in their lives. “Patty was young, so she didn’t really know mom, but it still affected her life.” McBride said. While she felt her mother’s death more intimately than Link, she still watched her sister struggle to grow up without such a pivotal figure in her life. “It’s a loss you never really recover from,” McBride explained. Losing a mother before you truly ever know her is the sort of wound that is seldomly ever healed.
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After Patty’s mother died, her father tried to regain a sense of normalcy. Patty’s father was reserved; he was a man who kept his emotions to himself, just trying to protect his children from the loss they all endured. Link knew her father was trying his best to be a single father of four, but pretending it never happened only hurt the healing process for the family. “He just acted like it never happened. It felt like we didn’t start to heal from that until we were adults,” Link said. As a child, Patty saw her father move on quickly, so she felt the need to move just as quick. It wasn’t until decades later that she felt she could even begin to digest the death of her mother. Grief has a funny way of compounding over time, so this loss almost became too big of a bite to swallow.
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Link’s father soon remarried, adding three more to the family. Patty and Peggy described their step-mother as an alcoholic. Her addiction placed even more pressure on an already cracking foundation. While someone stepped into their late mother’s role, the places where her mother once was still felt hollow. Their step-mothers drinking made her something of a ghost rather than a parental figure. Patty grieved a maternal figure for the second time in her young life.
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Link drew a picture of a large family crammed into a small house, but still feeling so far apart. The division followed the family through each of their lives. “It was just the way things ended up. There was so much going on, we kind of forgot to also balance a family,” Link said. It seemed that all six kids had to grow up fast, learning to take care of themselves. McBride, who was arguably closest to Link, had moved out right as she turned 18. After her older sister left, Link was alone with her father, step-mother and younger brother.
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“I wasn’t really close with my siblings growing up,” Link said. “Between the age difference and circumstance, we just weren’t close.” She explained. Patty hesitated, out of fear or embarrassment, that she didn’t really miss anything about her childhood. Link grew up in a large family that was supported off a small income. After her mother’s death and step-mother’s subsequent addiction, the already fragile family had to endure more stress. Financial struggles pulled the broken pieces farther apart. The distance felt in her childhood heavily impacted the way she chose to parent her own children.
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“I tried, and maybe did it too well, to teach my kids to be close with one another,” Link said. She believes that relying on siblings is a fundamental thing, as family should always be there for you. She shares that her three kids (Graham, Phoebe and Carter) are extremely close. “I beg and plead for Graham to just hang with me, but he always sticks by his sister’s side. Maybe I did my job too well,” she laughed.
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McBride largely admires Link’s parenting ability. Despite being her little sister, McBride went to Link for advice on parenting. “She has this amazing ability to connect with children,” she said, “I’ve always admired that.” Many people in Link’s life find she has a certain gift for kids. She speaks to children as if they were her equals instead of less than. “She was meant to be a mother,” McBride said.
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Mary Pat Gunderson is a longtime friend of Link, and also goes to her for parenting advice. “I like some kids, but I just can’t do what she does,” she said, “it’s amazing.” Gunderson describes Link as a humorous person, recounting drunken nights and a million inside jokes. The two were driving separately, but next to each other with the windows down. They both rolled to a stop, and Gunderson looked over to Link. “She was eating a bag of M&M’S, and they looked so good,” Gunderson said. She yelled over to Link who twisted the bag closed and threw the candy through her car window over to Gunderson. She enjoyed a handful of M&M’S and tossed them back. “I can’t see our relationship feigning,” Gunderson said, “she’s just a really good person.”
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Using her gift with kids, Link became a teacher in her adulthood. Link came from a line of teachers, and credits her aunt with her inspiration to teach. “I just watched her teach, and I fell in love,” Link said. After finishing out high school at Burlington Notre Dame School, she set her path to teaching by going to the University of Northern Iowa, then Virginia State to earn her Master’s. It was in Virginia she took her first teaching job, working at schools that were largely impoverished. In her work, she has seen kids fall behind, get beaten down by life and being dealt a poor hand.
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Rebecca Moore was a second grade student of Link’s. Link says Moore is one of her most memorable students, and the same is said on the other side. “I can’t think of my time in elementary without thinking of Mrs. Link,” Moore Said. She described herself as a shy child who was scared of her own shadow. Moore remembered being terrified of school, dreading the moment her mother dropped her off. Link saw herself in Moore, saying she was a “nervous Nancy,” as a kid.
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“I was scared of the world, and I wish I had someone there for me,” Link said. “So when I saw her, I wanted to be there.” Moore insisted that Link had been a pivotal figure in her school career. “I didn’t hate going to school anymore because she was there,” she said. Moore has kept in contact with Link, sending yearly Christmas cards and a wedding invite. “I felt important when she kept in contact with me, like I was good enough for her to think of me after all that time,” Moore said.
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There was a day when Moore dreaded gym class. “I don’t remember what game we were playing, but I just really didn’t want to go.” she laughed. Link had made an excuse for Moore, letting her rest on her classroom couch rather than attend gym class. “She knew I wasn’t sick, but she let me stay,” Moore said. She looked at this moment as a time when Link became one of her favorite people.
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Link loved touching the lives of kids so much, she decided to join the Des Moines Public School board. “There was no event that fired me up to join, I just wanted to make a difference,” she said. Link recounted a wild ride in having a place on the board. She was blasted by angry parents and even threatened for her work. Despite the chaos, and the late Johnathan Narcisse, the school board was a great time for Link. She was able to make change, and help the lives of the very kids she taught.
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Patty had built a good life for herself. She had a career she loved, a master’s degree and recently married the love of her life. Her past seemed to be in the past; a distant echo in a long dark hallway. Death wasn’t quite done with Patty yet. “They say the past always catches up to you, sooner or later.” Dan Thompson famously said in Ships of My Fathers.
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In quick succession, Patty’s older step-sister and oldest brother died. After such a long time, death came back to haunt her again. When the two siblings died, almost none of the family was in contact with each other. There was old family drama between the sisters, and McBride had stopped talking to Patty altogether. “I hadn’t talked to her in eight years, and I hated it,” she said. Peggy labels this period of silence as the worst time in her life.
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Peggy, who lived in Arizona at the time, was back in town after all those years away. She and her late husband drove to Patty’s house and sat in the car. They both just sat there in the dark, out of sight. “I wanted to know how she was doing, but I was scared to reach out.” McBride remembers sitting in the car for a good half hour before leaving. “I regret that time, I really hate that we didn’t talk.” She said. There is an irrefutable love that McBride has for her younger sister; after everything is said and done, her sister is her best friend.
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McBride lost her husband to cancer soon after her siblings’ death. It had been nearly a decade since the sisters spoke, but Link was by her sister’s side at the drop of a hat. “I don’t think I could have made it through without her,” McBride said, starting to choke up. Link had taken the first flight from Iowa to Arizona to be with her older sister in her time of grief, and the pair picked up right where they left off. “It was like nothing ever happened, we were the best of friends.” She said.
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Peggy admitted that her family had experienced a tremendous amount of loss in their lifetime, but they were survivors. Both the sisters had been there for each other when it mattered most, no matter how many days passed between them.
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Link tries to maintain the relationship she has with her sister to the best of her ability. McBride, Link and their remaining step-sister just got back from a Caribbean getaway. “I don’t really have stories from that trip, there was a lot of drinking,” McBride laughed. The three sisters talk to each other at least once a week, maintaining that family is the most important.
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In the most recent years of her life, grief came knocking on Patty's door again. This time, there was no death, only loss. Link and her husband, Jeff, got divorced. Patty still stumbles over their relationship title. The pair had been together for quite a while, raising three kids into adulthood. Link holds no ill will toward her ex-husband, and insisted the divorce was both mutual and civil. “These things just happen,” she explained. “It was a hard time for me, but I had my sister this time. We bonded over our mutual losses,” she said.
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Going through this loss was significantly different for Patty. Before, she was all alone against the mighty towers of grief. She was an ember in a house on fire, a spark forgotten in the rage of everything around her. This time, she wasn’t alone. This time, it was easier.
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“I have lost a lot in my life, but I was sort of prepared for it,” Link said, referencing her childhood spent in funeral homes. She felt that being around death day in and day out allowed her to be more comfortable with the concept. “Most times, we are experiencing death for the first time,” she said, “but I got familiar with it early, so it wasn’t so scary.”
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Link feels she has an odd, yet stable relationship with death. “I mean, I played hide and seek in the caskets, so I knew early on,” she said. Link understood death from an early age, so it made it easier to accept when it visited her every so often.
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“Loss still hurts, but I was lucky to not be so scared of it.” She said.
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