My first memory of my cousin Pat Hart goes back to 1950 when she visited our family in Parkersburg, West Virginia. I was a very shy eight year old; she was a very beautiful 18 year old. I was smitten. Pat remained my favorite cousin — and one of my favorite people — for the next 66 years, until her death a few weeks ago.

Pat was the only child of Faith Peterkin, my mother’s oldest sister. We didn’t see them much as Pat was off to school at Wheaton College and her mother, a widow, lived alone in New Hampshire. I should add that my dad didn’t take to many of our relatives, but he liked Faith and Pat because they were bright and they wasted no time on small talk.

I spent the summer of 1963 before my senior year at Bowdoin in Europe, working for six weeks at a French aviation company and then hitchhiking around the continent. My aunt Faith spent a memorable few days with me in Paris. Faith would hold my arm as we toured the city because she was losing her sight from a condition called retinitis pigmentosa. Later that summer, I visited my cousin Pat in the Netherlands, where she lived with her husband Doug and three young children. (She later had two more children.) Pat would later be diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition. She became totally blind before she turned 40.

Pat and her husband divorced not too long after her diagnosis. Because of her beauty, brains and warmth, she remained attractive throughout her life, her blindness notwithstanding. Indeed, she had five marriages, two of which ended in divorce, the others in the death of a partner.

We came to know best John Conrad, Pat’s fourth partner and a wonderful conversationalist. John had one leg and they would refer to themselves jokingly as “Stump and Bump.” Pat and John lived in Harpswell, so we would see them often. When we attended the Portland Stage together, they would sit in the front row, along with Pat’s seeing eye dog. Sometimes the dog would whimper or bark at something startling occurring on the stage, such as the sound of gunshots. The actors never seemed to mind; in fact, after the show some of them would say how much they loved having a dog in the audience.

Pat Hart’s life was defined by service. Before she moved to Maine in 1999, she founded an amazing non-profit in Fairfield, Connecticut, now called Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County. Since its founding in 1977, the organization has given thousands of children with physical or emotional disabilities the opportunity to experience music and the arts. The program earned her numerous awards, including the Jefferson Award, Associated Press’ Best Feature Program Award, YWCA Salute to Women Award, an honorary Doctorate in Music Education by the University of Bridgeport and a designation as a “Point of Light” by President George H. W. Bush. She carried the Olympic Torch for the 1996 Atlanta Games. I had the happy honor of sitting beside actress Tammy Grimes (Tony Award winner for “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”) at a fundraiser for the organization. After Pat moved to Maine, she became very involved in the Iris Network in Portland, an organization dedicated to helping people who are visually impaired or blind attain independence and community integration.

In her later years, Pat learned to weave on a giant loom, and she wove gorgeous silk prayer shawls and wool horse blankets. She also got inspired by the healing art of Reiki and became a master.

What set Pat apart more than her service or marriages or artistic skills was the way she engaged with the people she cared about. She would listen — really listen — to what you had to say. And you would listen — really listen — to what she had to say, because it always made good sense. After Pat died, her youngest son Dave wrote, “All of my childhood friends talk about how they were able to sit in our kitchen and talk for hours about things they could never talk to their own parents about.”

Several years ago I asked Pat if I could write about her in a column, perhaps, or for the Wheaton College magazine. She demurred, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Well, Pat, I hope you can forgive me. I just had to share what you meant to me and to many many others. You lost your sight, but you never lost your vision.

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David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary or suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns at [email protected].