To You, Patrick...

I was in the bathroom when da wife yelled to me, "honey, Patrick Swayze died!!!"

I was not feeling too well already and was sitting on the throne contemplating about lungs and mucous...and the news of Patrick Swayze sent me to a series of hard coughs and tears...

I grew up with Patrick Swayze, in a way...

From "The Outsiders", to "Dirty Dancing", to "Ghost", to some of his more notoriously bad movies such as "Road House" to his poking fun at himself on SNL...

I've always enjoyed him. In all his interviews, he never showed cockiness nor narcissism that we often see with movie stars that had made it big.

He was always humble and always gave credits to his mother/parents and his wife.

His marriage was one that is rare in Hollywood. He stayed married...

And there was a je ne sais quoi quality about him that made him appeal to both sexes.

Kinda like a bromance for me. LOL

I just thought that he was always cool and a nice guy.

When I found out that he was battling cancer, it was as if one of my family members was battling cancer...

when we found out that he died, we felt like a family member died....

da wife would still watch "Dirty Dancing" every time it comes on TV, even though we have the anniversary, director's cut edition. She still watches the edited and commercial version on TV everytime it comes on.

His "Outsiders" work introduced me to him and when I saw Dirty Dancing, I wanted to emulate him and become him, the "Bad Boy" that gets "baby" where "nobody puts Baby in the corner."

I wasn't too much into "Ghost" but I liked it enough to watch it a couple of times.

Even though critics hated "Road House". I enjoyed it for it's brainless macho man type of none sense yet if one watches closely. He did his form of Tai Chi (not a true form) that incoporated some peace into the violence.

His SNL sketch with Chris Farley was hysterical...where he poked fun of himself as a Chip N Dale chipmunk/stripper wanna be...

I am glad they paid tribute to him on "Dancing with the Stars". I usually don't watch it but da wife does, and she told me that they'd paid tribute to him so I tuned in.

it was well done...and we both had tears in our eyes watching the dancers performing and paying homage to his fabulous dances in "Dirty Dancing".

Rest in peace, Patrick.

To us, you were truly one of the shiny stars of Hollywood.