Keeper of memories – 10/3/16

Originally posted on 10/3/16.

As my kids were growing up I loved to share funny stories with my mom. She would always laugh and tell me that I really needed to write them down. I didn’t have a blog back then. I’m sure that I intended to write them down but why would I need to? I was married to a man who could remember everything!

I didn’t realize at first how many memories we lost. I’m not quite sure why but my brain does not always store details. I remember a lot but Patrick could remember obscure things such as lines from movies I had never heard of. Like everything else I think he trained his brain to do this. After college he never truly learned to read for pleasure. I know he enjoyed reading but it had to be something of value. He read the entire bible and when he was finished he decided to read the biographies of each of the presidents. I think he made it to Reagan and then stopped. He decided the biographies were more accurate after time had passed. The more recent ones were usually written by supporters and tended to be sugar coated. Of course I can’t think of any cool facts but he loved to share odd things he had learned such as the president who took calls while on the toilet!

He was also great at telling jokes. I would try to repeat them and they were never quite as funny. A highlight of the Steam Donkey shows was the jokes and banter in between songs, much of it groan worthy! I am so grateful that I have videos of that. Usually I can get through them with a smile.

He had favorite sayings too and we have forgotten some of them. One is that he used to tell us that there were only two rules in this house. Rule 1 is never throw things from the second floor, but we are unsure of Rule 2. Rule 2 could be that Dad is Awesome (which he frequently said) or that Dad is always right. Maybe it was “Dad needs a beer”.

Of course, like anyone, he didn’t remember everything, especially if it was a message his wife was supposed to give him! He would be talking to his mom and she would say, “I’m sure Danell told you ….” and he would tell her, “You know we never talk”. In fairness I would say the same thing!

He had another saying related to irony and I think it was poetic irony but it seems like it was a more obscure term. When he found an example of this type of irony he loved to tell us. Recently I experienced this type of irony and although it was a little sad I could just imagine him laughing at the irony of the situation.

A month or two after Patrick died I charged my old iPhone to see if I had any voice messages from him. There had been none on my current phone. I found one message from 2013. He had been on some sort of weekend adventure and I was gone when he got home. He left me a message to say he was home, he was exhausted and he was going to sleep. He ended it with “I love you”. I tried to save the message and the older phone did not have an option to do that. So, rather than play the message on the old phone and record it with the new, I had the brilliant idea to update the old phone. Of course when the update was complete my messages were gone. I took it to the phone store and they confirmed there was no way to retrieve it. I was sad but honestly I wasn’t going to be devastated about it. At the same time, I was still searching to make sure I didn’t miss any audio or video recordings. Eventually I found the voice memos on my phone. Wouldn’t it be sweet if he had recorded me a message? I found an 18 second message and at first it was very staticky. After a minute I realized I had made the recording. In the middle of the night. When his snoring woke me up! I’m not sure what I had planned to do with it but I never shared it with him. He was sensitive about his snoring and his feelings would have been hurt. I burst into laughter! How ironic! I’m looking for a sweet message and instead find the snoring I had recorded in anger. Now that’s (insert term) irony! 😂<<<<<<
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