Patricia Louise Cosner passed away July 2, 2022, leaving with her family a legacy of love she invested deeply and freely. We offer in her memory this remembrance of the extraordinary gifts she cultivated, the seeds of affection and inspiration she planted, the memories she left us with, and the sense of gratitude we felt to belong to her. We dedicate this to Our Heavenly Father, to whom our mother was faithfully devoted, and to our precious earthly father, her partner in all endeavors.
Patti was born October 5, 1955, to Frederick and Patricia Farris in Sedalia, Mo. She and her three siblings — Paul, Bill and Laura, traveled around the country as Fred and his family followed the call to ministry in Florida, California, and many points in between. Faith and family were at the heart of our mother’s childhood, and music was her primary language. In 1969, the family settled permanently in the Indian Wells Valley. Over the decades, Patti, her parents, and her siblings would grow their families, start their many business endeavors, and begin their participation in musical collaborations too numerous to name.
It was here in Ridgecrest that our mother met the love of her life, Lawrence Nathan Cosner, Jr., the first day of their sophomore year at Burroughs High School. They married shortly after graduation in 1973. This year marked 52 years they spent together, and 49 years of marriage. They were still living in the Indian Wells Valley when Larry III and Rebecca, their first two children, were born. Soon after they moved to San Diego, where Dad pursued a degree in medicine, and Mom had Lisa, Christina, John and Justin — devoting her time to building for us an idyllic childhood. The Cosner family returned to Ridgecrest in 1986, when Larry began practicing at Drummond Medical Group and Patti embarked on a nearly 30-year career as a journalist at the News Review. After they returned to their high desert home, Brian and Beth were born, completing the Cosner family.
As a writer and an editor, our Mother was committed to listening to the stories of the people in our community — their achievements and trials, successes and heartbreaks — and with utmost sensitivity and commitment to truth. In the process of giving them a voice, she would often develop relationships that would endure throughout her life and career.
Although she would consistently shy away from the spotlight, she always gave freely of her exceptional musical talents. She collaborated with her family, community theater groups, Big Band X-Press and individual musicians to lend her exquisite soprano voice to music ranging from jazz standards to musical theater to sacred to classical to contemporary styles. Early in her marriage, she and our father set to music some of their favorite verses, and taught those songs to their family. Later, she would be inspired to compose secular pieces as well.
To those of us who had the privilege of being raised by her, she was the beating heart of our family. She existed to serve her children, and all those around her, with a joy and love and patience that seems impossible to replicate. She read to us, sang to us, cooked for us, encouraged us to stir up the gifts within us, and counseled us to seek out what contribution we were meant to bring to the world. She was humble in all things, never wanting to inconvenience or intrude on anyone in her sphere of influence. As our mother struggled in her later years with her health, a silver lining for many of us was the opportunity to finally minister to her in a way that she had modeled to us for her entire life.
She is survived by her husband, Dr. Lawrence N. Cosner Jr.; son Lawrence N. Cosner III, wife Marla, and their children Cindy, Larry IV, Daniel, Mallory, Holly; daughter, Rebecca, husband Timothy Neipp, and their children Timothy II, Christina, Gabriel, Peter, Nathan, Genevieve; daughter Lisa, husband Eric Ledesma, and their children, Noah and Lucy; daughter Christina, husband Zack Scrivner, and their children, Zachary, Robert, Patricia Jane, Jacqueline; son John Cosner, and wife Kelly, and their children, Madalyn, Sarah, Erynn, Emma; son Justin Cosner, partner Annie Sand, and their children Brooke and Isaiah; son Brian Cosner and wife Kathryn; daughter Elizabeth, husband Jake Kanoa Gabrillo, and their child Bonnie; mother, Pat Farris; siblings, Paul Farris, Bill Farris and Laura Farris Austin; and countless aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and other loved ones.
There are aspects of my mother’s life that may never be fully appreciated or understood, even by those of us who loved her most. We cannot begin to capture the magnitude of the love and beauty she brought into the world. The limitations of the English language could not do justice, for example, to the bond that existed between our parents. But even if we cannot understand, let alone describe, these things we know that we will spend the rest of our lives in an attempt to continue her legacy by sharing what she gave us with those we encounter.
Even in the painful days leading up to her passing, we leaned into the relationships she helped forge within our family. Her husband and her children surrounded her around the clock to sing, pray, reminisce, and reflect on what was left to us and how we will reinvest that back into the people in our own lives. We know that the spirit of our mother endures in a realm that we cannot see or describe, but is there for us to eventually experience. And because of that beautiful spirit, her loss is not a hollow that will leave us feeling empty but a space in which we pour into each other the love that she passed on to us.