Our dear Pat died quietly at home on August 10. He was ready and at peace, he said, and knew he was encircled by the love of family and friends.

Pat spent his childhood through young adulthood in Chicago, son of the late Mike Shea and Beverly Nicholas Shea, now of Hollywood, California. At the age of five he was handed a camera by his photographer/ cinematographer father and grew up using it. Throughout his life and until the time of his death, Pat near-daily kept in hand and at the ready a still or movie camera, no friend or subject spared. A small sampling of his photos and his father’s, plus a variety of family snapshots may be viewed online at http://www.flickr.com/ photos/ thefstopshere.

In 1973 Pat’s family moved to southern California, where he worked in the movie and television industries, both with his father and independently as camera operator, electrician, best boy, clapper, set operator, and occasionally on sound. Two of the better-known projects in his career were on second unit for the movie Top Gun and behind the camera for the television series The Waltons.

The light of Pat’s life was his daughter Christine. Like her dad, Christine has an artist’s eye and now a promising career in the avant-garde of San Francisco, a direction which Pat supported heartily. Especially in recent years, father and daughter shared a lively telephone and online relationship that included the constant exchange of photos, drawings, info, tips, tricks, jokes, encouragement, and abiding love.

Several in Pat’s family have long lived in the islands or nearby, including his late grandmother Mary Shea of Eastsound, Aunt Helen Kovac of Marysville, cousins Dan and Dorothy Kovac of Lopez Island, and cousins Kitty, Ray, Tommy, and Steve. Pat had been a visitor here over many years, and when in 1996 he chose to leave the pace and intensity of the entertainment world, it was to Orcas Island he came to settle permanently. Here, too, he surrendered himself to a wholly transfigured life.

His most recent years on Orcas were the happiest of his short 54 years. He found a community of people he cared for deeply and considered his family in the highest sense. He found a dear, close circle of friends whose goodness and support he cherished and for whom this loss leaves enormous and lasting grief. He found love, sweet and pure, and shared his life in its warmth to the end. He found deep personal transformation and realization, especially in his final year and even as he braved the ravages of his illness. And, to the last day, he kept us laughing with a quick, smart, wicked sense of humor.

We who bore witness to the full bloom of the closing chapters of his life wish that you, gentle reader, might have known him as we did. The Pat Shea we love was a man of quiet substance and character: intelligent, authentic, maverick to be sure, talented, principled, generous, playful, kind, thoughtful, funny, insightful, steadfast, courageous, graceful and grateful through his last great challenge. We miss him profoundly and will for a very long time.

Please join family and friends for a memorial celebration of Pat’s life at 5pm Thursday, August 24, in the new parish hall at Emmanuel Episcopal in Eastsound. Tax deductible remembrances may be given in his name to Orcas Family Health Center or Orcas Animal Protection Society.

— Susan Hull