Pauline was born in Redwood City, California in Mar. 6, 1951, to Clara and Jimmy Padilla. She was the oldest daughter and one of 4 children. At 5 years old, her father was hit by a train and killed instantly. At seven, her mother remarried a man named Martin Zavala, who also had 4 children. Once Clara and Martin were married they had 7 more children, making it a total of 14 brothers and sisters. She attended elementary schools in Redwood City, and Alviso. She attended Buscher High School and later tried her hand at Beauty College. At about 20 years old, she married Pete Vidal and had two sons, Pete Adrian Vidal, and Nicholas Jamison Vidal. She later became a single mother and raised her boys alone supporting them every inch of the way. She loved them with all her heart and would do anything for them. It was her and her boys for the longest time. They were what she truly lived for.
She worked several jobs ranging from a boat warehouse, various electronic companies and finally found her niche in customer service. She found some joy in working at such places as Comcast, Kohl's and California Check Cashing. She loved these jobs not for the work but for the chance of meeting such wonderful people. Pauline was such a people person. She always found good in everyone she met. With her warm, big smile, she accepted everyone for who they were and hardly judged.
Once adults her boys married and had two children each. Adrian has a boy Adrian, and a girl Alexandra. Nicholas has two boys, Nicholas and Isaac. Pauline was very proud of her children and grandchildren. If you checked her wallet she always had pictures ready to show.
In February 2008 Pauline was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Even with this devastating news Pauline was upbeat and hopeful. She was still pushing to be her vibrant self. She was determined to fight this and give it all that she had. Pauline never wanted anyone to think of her as a loser if the time came when she couldn't fight anymore. When she went to the doctors they were hopeful that they would be able to perform a Whipple surgery to remove the cancer. At that time the doctors discovered that the cancer had also spread into her liver, because of this, they were unable to perform the surgery, giving the diagnosis as terminal. Pauline opted to go with Chemotherapy. She went through two rounds of chemo and one round of blood transfusions. In April when Pauline went for a check up it was found that the cancer had spread to her stomach. Then in May the cancer spread to her throat. On May 31st, Pauline had a stroke while visiting her son in Sacramento. The doctors were optomistic as her brain scan was normal, no signs of cancer being spread. But after doing several more tests it was determined that Pauline had had three strokes, causing her to lose her speech and some memory. Pauline came home back to Santa Clara but was in a lot of pain and returned to the hospital in Santa Clara. She remained in the hospital for 3 days before being sent home. On the 11th Pauline and the doctors decided that they would go for radiation treatment. However on the 12th Pauline was rushed back to the hospital. After a deep tissue MRI it was determined that the cancer had spread to her brain and her spinal cord. It was like millions of sand crystals in her brain. Her brain was swollen causing lesions. The doctors put her on medicine to relieve the swelling. At this time the doctors said there was nothing that they could do, pain management was all they could do. On Monday the 16th the doctors advised her sons that Pauline only had between 1 and 24 hours. At that time all the family rushed to the hospital to be with Pauline. Adrian and Nicholas were put in charge of determining what the next steps would be. While all the family gathered with prayers and hopes for a miracle, all we could do was put Pauline on the morphine drip. Once on the drip the doctors gave her 5-7 days. The doctors discharged Pauline on Thursday, the 19th. Pauline returned to her home in Santa Clara surrounded by family. While in the comfort of her bed Pauline passed on Friday at 7:30 a.m. with her son Adrian by her side.
