Father Richard Randall Brady
Mother Patti Inez Atkisson
first husbend: Garland L. Holt
Children: Garland Jr, David Richard Holt, Karen Christine Holt, and Robin Aine Holt

My mother was born Patricia Ann Brady in Omaha Neb to Richard Randall Brady and Patti Inez Atkisson. At the time her father was studying to be an MD and later worked at that field. Patricia lived in Omaha, Livingston and Missoula Montana. During this time her mother and father had a son John Brady and a girl child Beverly Brady. However, there were problems with the marriage of her father and mother and they divorced. Patricia made the choice of living with her father and his second wife, in Missoula and later in San Francisco after her father rejoined the US Army Medical service. Patricia finished High school in San Francisco with plans to go to college and had a scholarship. However, she gave up the scholarship to another when she fell in love with a man named Ed Miller and married him. Patricia’s father disapproved of the marriage and it was annulled. Later Patricia met Garland Leroy Holt (known as Roy), an Army Sargent, while she was working at a donut shop. They fell in love.

They married and had their first son, named Garland L Holt Jr while Garland Sr. was overseas. After her husband returned from the war, they had three other children, David Richard Holt, Karen Christine Holt, and Robin Aine Holt.

Due to the war and what is now known as PTSD, Garland Sr. became an alcoholic and Patricia and Garland Sr. were divorced after the family moved to Montana from California. During this hard time Patricia when she suffer living with an alcoholic man, she went back to school and got a LPN degree and starting working in the medical field. Oddly this was the field she wanted to work in when she left High School in San Francisco. She once told me that life is often a circle this way.

She married again to a Joe Kinsey, but he too turned out to be an alcoholic and the relationship ended. She did like her men. But Patricia went on, like the strong women she was. Then sadly the illness of Alzheimer’s hit her and she started what is now known as the “slow farewell” as her memories disappeared over time. Yet she was still a “talker” and loved to read and do crosswords nearly to the end. Mom still had her periods where she was clear. In was in one of these periods, she realized her condition. In fact, she once told the nursing home she wanted to end her life. However, even in Oregon, it is not legal to have doctor assisted suicide unless one has a terminal illness. Alzheimer is not seen as a terminal illness, and mom was otherwise very healthy. She was loving cared for by her daughter Karen until the end.

On the last night of her life, she fell out of bed, and had to have a nurse help her back. The nurse left to get something to measure her blood pressure. When she got back, mom was gone. We think that due to the fall, she suffered a blood clot that went to her heart or lungs. This is a rather common problem with older people. Actually, I think she wanted to go as she was becoming less and less herself.

Did she die alone? Yes, there was no living person with her at the time. But, I think those close to her and had passed were all there to welcome her to the other side.

Her ashes were placed in the warm Pacific sea off the Oregon coast not far from where those of her second son, David, had been placed. A small amount of her ashes were taken to the start of the Ring of Kerry in Ireland, the home of her ancient Brady family. She always wanted to go to Ireland but the pressures of daily life made that visit impossible while she was living. It is very near a local pub. I would think she would have liked to visit this pub and joke with the Irish men there. Her sprint may be doing that! So if you visit a local pub near the Ring of Kerry and see a redheaded woman joking with all the men, you may have met the sprint of my mother. I know she is now happy having regained all her memories (and her red hair) and will overlook her family here on the earth.

However, let me add something about Alzheimer's:

Some years ago, I lost my wallet. It was terrible. Not just because I lost my driver’s license and credit cards, but I also lost my address book and a number of small bits of paper with odd ideas and remembrances. It was as if all I had done no longer existed.

Over a few weeks I requested and received copies of the missing cards. I was able to recover most of the missing addresses and phone numbers from elsewhere. Nevertheless, I never did recover the lost information on people I had not seen for some years. All of those small bits of papers are forever lost. This may be a small sample of what would occur with Alzheimer’s as my mother suffered.

But the difference is it isn’t the victim but the loved ones of the victim that suffer the worst. After the first few stages, the victim no longer remembers what they have lost. It is the loved ones and caretakers who each day will lose a part of the person they remember. It is a long goodbye as their loved one fades away bit by bit. Even after the victim is gone, the loved ones will feel the lost and guilt that somehow they did not do enough.

The last time I saw and spoke to my mother, was in the spring just after she had to go to a nursing home. She was out of her room getting her hair done when my sister I came to her room. When she returned to the room, she looked to me and you could see she remembered me. We all talked for a while, and mom said she was surprised by the gray in my hair. After a short while, it was as if a there was a flicker in her eyes, and I knew she was gone and no longer remembered me. Yet, she acted as if she did – she was good at that.

Reading books on this illness and tracking the advances toward a cure will help. Still, there is very little each of us can yet do to return the lost remembrances until we rejoin our loved ones in the presence of God. We each live under that dark certainty that we too will go this way. Maybe there is a lesson behind this illness. To value people we meet and the time we have with them. For that is a gift from God.



By Garland Holt Jr.

Note: If you have information, photos or memories that you would like to contribute to this memorial, please contact Garland Holt.