Patricia ``Mimi`` Gauvin

Gauvin, Patricia (nee Rossignol). It is with gratitude and full hearts that we announce the passing on May 9, 2024, at 6:15pm, of our “Mimi”, Patricia Gauvin, after a courageous and inspiring 6 ½ year battle with stage 4 aggressive breast cancer. With a “family first” philosophy of life, this fight bought her time with her beautiful family, bringing her from Moncton, New Brunswick to Halifax, Nova Scotia for her final days. She will be profoundly missed by her husband, lover, and best friend Martin Gauvin, who had the privilege of nursing her through sickness and health. This “beautiful life,” as she referenced her journey had more high points than most, as she travelled the world, spent as much time visiting the family as was humanly possible and loved all unconditionally. Beloved by her extended family, who came together in three locations during the AND I LOVE YOU SO, 50^th Wedding anniversary tour of 2016 – her selflessness, laughter, love of life and unconditional love will be missed by countless nieces, nephews, siblings, in-laws, neighbours, friends and most especially by her son Richard Gauvin (Stacey), grandsons, Louis Gauvin (Emily Murray) and Nicholas Gauvin, and great-grandsons Harvey and Knox Gauvin, her “adopted” son Nick Schoch, and niece Caroline Rossignol.

A life well-lived is an understatement, as she determinedly set out from Edmundston, NB, both as a middle schooler to Moncton, and then as a nursing student in Quebec City. Marrying high school classmate, Martin Gauvin in May 1966, they set out on a journey that took them across Canada for work and around the world for travel, clocking 23 moves. Beloved in every city in which she lived, from Edmundston, to Montreal to Oshawa to Winnipeg to Abbotsford to Whitby and, to Moncton, NB for the past 20 years, she has most certainly left a wake of love and modelled behaviour in her stead. Retiring to a Maritime golf course in 2002, Mart and Pat (as they were fondly known), hosted many a friend and family member in their golf course condo, where you were sure to have a trip to the beach, a lobster feed and lots of laughter and music.

 “Le Rossignol” was her singing handle, and she delighted friends and family alike with a smoky jazzy voice, after a nursing school dare turned into an early singing career. She sang and worked as a nurse, while supporting her mother in nursing her ailing father back home. And as Mart likes to joke, “it was RCA or me, and thankfully, she chose me”!

Pat was predeceased by her parents, Sylvio, and Regina Rossignol of Edmundston, NB, her sister Mona Rossignol, and brother Paul Rossignol. Her beloved and doting older brother, Don Rossignol of Boca Raton, Florida, was with the immediate family by her side when she passed on May 9^th in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she had resided for the last year of her beautiful life. She fought hard to get there to spend every moment possible with her “little family,” which if you know them, you will know, there is nothing “little” about them!

Always with a term of endearment, if you were in Patricia’s life, you would have no doubt about how much you were loved. Chou, mon petit chou, Cherie were amongst her most common terms of endearment, and it wasn’t uncommon to be called all of them in a greeting or voicemail. Lou Bear and Nickly Poo were the apple of her eye, and she truly put everything into being part of the lives of her loved ones.

Until we meet again, our beloved Mimi.

There will be a celebration of life later in the spring providing family and friends with time to gather.

Thank you to all the loving medical teams who supported the fight and all the friends and neighbours along the way who demonstrated true compassion and care.

We encourage you to celebrate Pat by doing something personal that would bring her love of flowers to life in your own world. Spend time in nature, feel the sun on your face, the breeze in your hair, breathe in the spring air, listen to the lapping ocean, she will meet you there! Be grateful because she sure was.