LIVESTRONG for Matt Patterson

By Jennifer Ochstein

It’s the little things we’ll remember most about Matt Patterson:

His uncanny appreciation for the stock market.

His ability to talk with professors about politics.

“How loud he was,” said his sister Lauren Patterson, a freshman at Holy Cross College.

“To his friends, he was unforgettable,” said Kelly Carey, a Holy Cross College sophomore, classmate, and friend of Matt.

Matt Patterson died August third of esophageal cancer, less than a year after he was diagnosed.

He was a political science major who had hopes of one day becoming a politician or attorney. His friends and family said he mentioned more than once he’d eventually become President. And none of them doubted him, they said.

“He had a dynamic personality,” Kelly Carey said of Matt. “You could not meet him and not remember him.”

“Some of his friends even called him Grandpa,” agreed his mother, Nancy Patterson and his sister, Lauren. He just always seemed older than he was.

“We thought he would pull through because he has such a strong personality,” they said.

“He never let it get him down.”

“That’s because Matt always thought the doctors would figure out a way to save him in the end,” said his dad, Phil Patterson.

But pictures show the steady decline of the Holy Cross College sophomore over a one-year period. He went from a healthy 20-year old to someone who appeared years and years older two weeks before his death. Since then, his family and friends have seemingly been left to wonder how the cancer caught up to Matt, a 2005 graduate of Penn High School in Mishawaka, Indiana.

Nancy Patterson explained how her son called her in November of 2006 from his dorm room at Holy Cross College with intense pain in his abdomen. He went to the doctor, who prescribed medicine for acid reflux. Because of his age, cancer wasn’t even considered.

“The medicine did the trick for a time, but the pain returned,” she said.

Rob Collins, who roomed with Matt for a time, made it a point to visit his friend every weekend and saw the fight Matt waged with cancer.

“I just don’t think he would have wanted people to remember him like that,” Rob said, referring to what the cancer and treatment did to Matt’s body. “He wanted people to remember how he was at the beginning of his treatment,” Rob said. “But, Matt knew people were rooting for him.”

And now his family and friends are keeping his memory alive.

For one, Matt’s uncle, Al Fassler, 55, of Niles, MI, recently rode the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s LIVESTRONG Challenge in Portland, OR, in Matt’s honor. The challenge is a 100-mile bike ride to raise money for cancer research and awareness. Fassler had been training for the event since May. “It helped me through all this,” Al said of the training and Matt’s death.

His goal was to raise $2,500 to contribute to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. But, he surpassed that, raising nearly $7,000.

When Al began to train for the 100-mile, Matt anticipated eventually joining his uncle on the journey.

“It was a way to keep him inspired,” Matt’s dad, Phil, said of the ride and his son. That helped raise everyone’s spirits and gave everyone a goal to focus on, the Pattersons explained.

And while Al is keeping Matt’s legacy alive through 100-mile bike challenges, Lauren Patterson sees her brother’s legacy on the Holy Cross College campus all the time. “He was so well known,” Lauren said. People approach her, come to her room, and pull her aside after class to tell her stories about what a good friend he was. And if there’s one thing she wants people to remember about her brother, it’s that he lived his life fully. He didn’t waste a moment.

“I want other people to understand that they think we have all this time,” Lauren said. “They think they have all this time to call their mom and tell her how they’re doing, or to see their friends, or to figure out what to do. People assume they have all the time in the world, but they don’t. His life was taken short, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t full.When I talk about him to other people, I always want them to know I am who I am because of him,” she said. “He is my role model.”