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PATRICK FRANCIS
MURPHY LED AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE
Good Morning.
I'm
David Faughn. I'm married to Pat's daughter,
Leeann.
When my wife asked me to speak, of course I said yes. I know how
much
it means to her to have someone who knew Pat and loved Pat say
something
today.
But, truth be told, I'm
intimidated. Not because of a fear of public
speaking, but
because it is impossible to describe in a few words and in
a few
minutes all of those things that we loved about Pat; those things
that
made Pat exceptional; that made Pat, Pat.
I take some solace from
the fact that I am speaking to a congregation
of people who knew
Pat. I do not have to tell you why we loved Pat.
You already
know.
You have shown through your visits, calls, food, kind
words and prayers
that you loved Pat as well. You have already
written Pat's eulogy
with your actions during these last difficult days
and with far more
sincerity and eloquence than I possess. I can
tell you that Pat's
family will always be grateful.
But, in an
effort to make my task a little easier, I asked some of
Pat's loved
ones what they wanted me to convey to you today. They
told
me:
Tell them how inspirational Pat was.
Tell them how tough
Pat was.
How, in his last year, he fought off esophageal and
liver
cancer, two surgeries, a heart attack, congestive heart failure
and a
stroke and never complained to his daughters or his son because
he did
not want to burden them any more than he knew they were
already
burdened.
They said, tell them how you got to know Pat
when his wife was sick
with cancer by taking him to the races every
weekend to get him out of
the house as a favor and how you ended up
getting more from the
experience than he ever did.
Tell them how
much he loved Velda.
And his children.
And the rest of his
family.
Tell them what a diplomat Pat was.
And what a
gentleman.
Tell them how much fun he was.
Tell them how he
was as much a hero to his children when they were
adults as he was when
they were infants.
None of these things has made my task today any
easier. No, they just
prove how hard it is to do Pat
justice
However, there was one statement from Leeann that stood
out. Of the
things she wanted me to convey, the one she kept
repeating was "Tell
them how Pat was a teacher."
Pat was
a teacher in the literal sense. He probably taught half of
this
congregation to ride. He also taught many of you to fox hunt, to
love
this hunt country, and to share his love of horses.
But I think
Pat taught us a whole lot more than that. His greatest
lesson was
not given in the riding ring or hunt field.
PAT'S GREATEST
LESSON WAS THAT HE TAUGHT US HOW TO LIVE AN
EXTRAORDINARY
LIFE
It is only natural for those grieving the loss of a
loved one to seek a
lesson to take from the life of the
departed.
With Patrick Francis Murphy, the lesson is that simple
and that pure:
Pat Murphy led an extraordinary life.
Pat's life
was extraordinary in its details.
The details are that Pat Murphy
was the child of an Irish immigrant,
Dennis, and his wife Anna.
He was one of their nine children, seven
boys and two girls. He
was preceded in death by his brothers Dennis and
Bing Murphy, and is
survived by brothers Robert, Johnny, Jimmy and
Daniel, better known as
"Bud," Murphy and sisters Catherine, better
known to most of us as
"Tootie," Murphy and Ellen, better known as
"Sis," Glass.
Pat's nieces and nephews, and great-nieces and great-nephews are
all
worthy of mention, but too numerous to name.
Anyone who
knows the Murphys, indeed, anyone who has spent a passing
moment with
them, cannot help but be struck by the obvious love they
have for one
another and the pure joy they find in each other's
company.
One of the best days I've had in recent years was watching this
past
Superbowl with Pat, Jimmy, Robert, Tootie, Sis, Pat's nephew
Robbie
and niece Renie, and my wife Leeann, along with spouses and
friends. We
knew this was Pat's last Superbowl and it was his
first and last
vacation to Florida. It is impossible to describe
in words what made it
so special; for a few hours, Pat was his old
self, drinking Miller Lites
- a sure sign he was feeling good - he and
the boys giving Sis a
hard time about the Philadelphia Eagles losing
and Sis taking it with
fairly good humor, watching the whole family
treat Pat like he was the
center of their universe. In truth, for
that week, he was.
It seems like such a small thing to
describe, but such a significant
one when you see it. They are
not merely tied by bloodlines they did
not choose, but by friendships
they will never relinquish.
YES, PAT LED AN EXTRAORDINARY
LIFE
Pat was a member of what is now called "The Greatest
Generation."
He lived through the "Depression" in a family that was no
stranger
to hard work. He came of age in a time of war and sacrifice,
serving,
like so many in that generation and in his own family, in the
Second
World War.
Pat never said much about his time in the
service, dismissing it as
being of small significance. When asked about
it, one of the few things
he would discuss is spending a cold Christmas
day in a warehouse in
France, missing his family. That was the only
thing Pat found worthy of
mention - not being with his brothers and
sisters.
As in all things, from what I can tell, Pat did his job in
the military
well. Until his last days, he could recite, in French that
he did not
otherwise speak, telephone numbers that he was required to
memorize in
the service.
That Pat could remember
something so small learned decades ago will not
surprise anyone who
knew him well. Pat's memory and intelligence did
not wane in his
later years.
Nor did his charm, humor and child-like love of
life. Pat was known to
ride horses onto dance floors at parties,
dance at sorority balls in his
seventies and to be just as much the
life of the party at eighty as he
was at twenty.
YES,
PAT LED AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE
He was the sort of man who
became more distinguished with age. It is no
wonder, then, that Pat was
asked by those sorority girls to dance, that
he was greeted at the
hospital like a celebrity, or that he was the most
photographed man I
have ever known.
Pat's was a life of excitement that few of us can
imagine and fewer
still can match. He had that sort of job that
children point to and say
"I want to do that when I grow up." He
was a professional
steeplechase jockey for many years and was a leading
rider in New York.
He swept the card by winning every race at Tryon in
1954, a feat that
was matched only in recent years. Later he was
a top show rider.
Later still, he was Huntsman for the Iroquois
Hunt Club, a job he held
until his retirement in 1994, still riding
horses at 71 better than men
half that age. He loved the job so
much that even after retirement he
could not stand to miss a
hunt. He got so excited on hunt days that he
would wake up in the
early morning hours unable to sleep for fear that
he might miss
something. And, as anyone who ever rode with Pat in the
truck
following the hunt can attest, he was the life of the party out
there
as well.
It is for this reason that Pat is being buried today in
hunt clothes,
including Johnny Kerr's hunt coat, to whom the family
gives a special
thanks. You see, Pat gave away his own hunt
clothes to dear friends he
thought deserved them and who could use them
more.
Pat was not the sort of man who ever found himself at work
wondering
how he got there or if it was what he wanted to do with his
life. Every
time he mounted a horse for a race or a hunt, he knew
exactly why he was
there * he would not be anywhere else. Pat was one
of those rare
people whose passion was also his profession, something
of immeasurable
worth.
Rarer and more valuable still was the
love Pat had for his wife, Velda
Ritchey Murphy, who preceded him in
death from cancer in 1996. Pat's
devotion to Velda did not falter
in hardship, in sickness or in death.
She was the love of his life as
he was of hers.
The same love and devotion existed between Pat and
his grand-daughter,
Brittany, and his children, Mary Catherine Murphy
Blacketer, Patrick
Michael Murphy, and my amazing wife Patricia Leeann
Murphy-Faughn.
Their love knew and knows no limit.
I have often
joked that when we went looking for a home of our own,
Leeann said I
could buy any house anywhere in the world that I wanted,
as long as it
was on Grimes Mill Road. That is where her parents and
her sister
lived. The truth is Leeann never wanted to be far from her
family
for any length of time. It is no accident that their parents then
came to live their last years on Cathy and Mike Blacketer's farm or
that Leeann and I
came to live only a couple of fields away. That
is the nature of their
love. No place on Earth has value if it is far
from family.
Yes, Pat Murphy lived a life that was extraordinary
in its details.
But those details are nothing compared to
the way Pat lived it.
Pat was an extraordinary
man.
That is the true lesson, the true legacy, of Pat's
life.
When this day comes for each of you, as it inevitably will,
if
they can say
That you were loved widely and deeply, but found
that no
reason for arrogance;
That all of your family adored
you,
and all of the world was your family;
That you left
others better for having known you, no matter how fleeting the
acquaintance;
That the best and the brightest thought you better
and brighter still;
That educated and uneducated, rich and poor,
and powerful and powerless sought out your counsel and you gave it to all
with the same consideration;
That you gave that counsel honestly,
and without self-interest;
That you kept your word even after
others broke their's;
That you were generous with your
friendship, even to those who offered only cause for anger;
That
you stood ready to give away all that others might take;
That you
were an infallible judge of men's character and motives, yet greeted all
as friends;
That you had something to teach any man wise enough to
listen and were wise enough to listen to any man foolish enough to
speak;
That you thought only of others when others would be
thinking only of themselves;
That you were as good as a saint, but
as fun as a sinner; and
That you were as joyful as a child,
while shouldering the responsibilities of an adult,
If they can say
all of these things about you when you are laid to rest, then they can say
that you led an extraordinary life.
PATRICK FRANCIS MURPHY
LED AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE.
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