Young husband left a legacy of ceaseless kindness

By Melanie Ave, Times Staff writer
In print: Thursday, March 27, 2008

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CLEARWATER — Good man.

Living saint.

Old soul.

Gentle giant.

Those were just a few of the words used to describe Patrick Ewers, 37, a hospice counselor, before his funeral at St. Brendan Catholic Church.

His family said they knew Patrick was special from a young age. But they didn't realize just how special until after his death and stories of his kindness began to pour in from friends, co-workers and strangers.

Dozens stood in line at his casket Wednesday to say their goodbyes.

"It's amazing," said his sister, Katie Ewers, 36, of Atlanta, "just how many lives he touched."

• • •

There was this time when Patrick was 5 or 6, when he found an injured, wild rabbit and brought it inside to try to nurse it back to health.

"His mother convinced him the rabbit would be better off outside," his father John Ewers recalled, smiling through tears.

At age 14, his family said Patrick was nominated for a Carnegie Medal for heroism after saving two drowning children off a Dunedin beach. But, they said, he always grieved for the children's father, whom he was unable to save.

Cindy Smith, who worked with Patrick at Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, remembers the day Patrick agreed to talk to her disabled son, who was homesick for his friends in Michigan.

After their discussion, Patrick told him: " 'Go tell your mom you have a friend now,' " Smith said. "They were instant buddies."

At the time of his death, Patrick was days from fulfilling the requirements for his mental health counselor's license that would enable him to work with abused and neglected children.

• • •

Patrick met his wife, Amy, at the hospice, where she was a nurse and he was counselor, in February 2007.

"We just instantly fell in love," she said. They married four months later.

Amy said their last night together was a wonderful one.

Patrick agreed to watch The Passion of the Christ at her urging. For her, it was a Good Friday tradition to watch the heart-wrenching and graphic movie about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

During the scene when Christ's bloodied body is taken from the cross, Patrick fell to his knees. He said that Christ did not deserve to suffer so much for his sins.

"I am so unworthy of his love," his wife recalled him saying.

The couple spent the rest of the evening talking about God's love before going to bed.

Patrick, who had kidney problems through the years, died in the middle of the night of unknown causes at his Palm Harbor home.

"I woke up to find him dead with a smile on his face, his arms around me," Amy said. "As a former hospice nurse, I'm telling you people don't die that way very often."