He would have been 55 today.

That’s impossible to wrap my mind around. Of course, Patrick was thirty-one when he died, and no one could wrap around his age then, either.

I lack the time and the energy to see if I have posted these columns earlier…but they need to be read today.

Chase ’em down with a shot of Nestle’s. I know I will.

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This first ran in the Ahwatukee Foothills News in February, 2003:

Patrick and I put the boom in our parents’ own baby boomerang.

We trailed three older siblings and, even though he was four years older than me, we wound up doing everything together: playing army under the maple tree; trading noogies in the back seat of the station wagon, playing Monopoly and Risk marathons that lasted for endless Pennsylvania summer days; making up clubs and fighting like fiends over who would be president; squabbling over our chores. Once he clobbered me with a frying pan because he thought I wasn’t doing my share emptying the dishwasher.

Patrick was the founder and president of the Chocolate Milk Club, an organization that had no agenda, no schedule, and no unfinished business. What it had was two members, chocolate milk mix, and a gallon of milk.

He would call meetings spontaneously, and we would caucus in the kitchen, filibustering over the merits of powder vs. syrup. Powder always won: syrup didn’t leave any good lumpy goo at the bottom of the glass. We’d make several glasses apiece, searching for the elusively perfect combination of mix to milk and just the right degree of chocolate-ititude. Like all meetings should, ours lasted until we got tired of it or until mom shooed us outside.

Then we’d play Monopoly and argue some more.

Years passed, we got busy, and we wound up on different sides of the country. We didn’t get to talk to each other much, except for big events like my wedding, but I always would call him on my birthday. We would talk for hours, compare notes and catch up. And we were all grown up, and didn’t argue much at all anymore, especially about the dishwasher.

Patrick died in the spring of 1987, too young at 31, so we have a lot to catch up on. He never met his two nieces, two nephews, and his new brother-in-law. I’ve missed telling him about my dizzying career swings. I’ve missed hearing about his travels, his cartography adventures, and getting his help with political science homework.

Since he lived in Philadelphia, it’s easy to forget most days that he’s now a bit more than a phone call away . My subconscious buys the pleasant fiction that he’s back East making maps and reading atlases.

Still, twice a year, on the anniversaries of his birth and his death, I catch myself reaching for the phone. Instead I call a meeting of the Chocolate Milk Club (because when the president can’t fulfill his duties, the VP must step in). I buy some Qwik and have a glass or more with my kids and tell them how Uncle Patrick introduced me to Fred Astaire, Glen Miller, and science fiction, and how one Christmas we competed for a month to come up with the best piano rendition of O Holy Night. (Belated apologies to our parents; that had to have been painful.)

So please mark your calendars for March 9 and September 25 and plan to attend your own meeting of the Chocolate Milk Club. Raise a glass or few to siblings lost, memories rediscovered,and ponder the mysteries of powdered versus syrup.

And Patrick, if you’re listening, you were right about the dishwasher. I was dogging it.

© E. Stocking Evans 2003

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This ran in the AFN in March, 2007:
Parents aren’t supposed to have favorites among their children.

That’s the company line, at least. But any parent who has more than one child knows that there will always be the kid who is Easier To Talk To, and there will be the kid who Doesn’t Slam Doors, and sometimes there is the kid who is less likely to Call From The Police Station needing bail money.

Favorites? No. But there will always be one who needs a little more shielding, a little more protecting.

Of the five children in my family, it was always clear that my brother Patrick was the kid Who Needed Protecting. A nerdy, skinny kid with big glasses and an owlish demeanor, Patrick was exactly as smart as he looked (that is to say, very), was exactly as athletically gifted as he appeared (that is to say, not at all) and was teased exactly as often as you would expect (that is to say, incessantly).

So, when the rest of the kids came home with athletic awards, Mom made sure to recall his triumphs in academic decathlons. When the more popular siblings came home with invitations and parties, she would recount his achievements on the SAT. She used the phrase “Every dog has his day” so often with him I thought our own dog’s name was Patrick.

At age 31, Patrick was diagnosed with an illness that was brief, brutal, and sadly, terminal. He came home one last time to rest under Mom’s protective wing. A former home ec major, she launched a nutritional jihad in defiance of the prognosis and never left his side, but in the end it came down to keeping vigil by a hospital bed with a mother who suddenly needed all of our protection.

Last week, on the twentieth anniversary of his last night on earth, I found myself keeping vigil with my memories and a stiff drink, and discovered that, thanks to the miracle of the Internet it is now possible to do the floral equivalent of drunk-dialing your parents at three a.m. with a selection of spring bulbs.

Mom called me the next day to thank me for the tulips. And then came a cautious question: “What day did Patrick die? Your father and I can’t remember exactly.”
When I confirmed that it was indeed today and that they were instead recalling the date of the funeral, she sighed and asked one more question: “What kind of mother can’t remember a day like that?”

What kind of mother, indeed. The kind of mother who hilariously never could, and still can’t, remember any of our birthdays or any one of her fifty-seven years’ worth of wedding anniversaries. The kind of mother who was in an exhausted haze twenty years ago from providing around-the-clock care for her son for months on end. The kind of mother who has never forgotten to say a daily rosary for all of her children and who cries at least a little every day for her son; the child who, as it turned out, didn’t need her protection any longer.
Parents shouldn’t have favorites. They shouldn’t have to bury their children, either. But forgetting one day is nothing when you’ve already remembered a lifetime of everything.

E.S. Evans 2007