A Hell of a Surprise

Not everyone is built for, or would have fun at, a surprise party thrown in their honor. But the joy of being with someone for long enough is knowing what would make them happy, and Patrick's wife was keenly aware that Patrick would enjoy—but not expect—a big party.

This party was developed covertly, in secret, for more than a year. It's no small thing to try and coordinate invitations for dozens of people scattered all over the country, put them into a single room at the same time, and keep everyone's mouth shut. What a thing, you know?

Everyone celebrates differently. Some loud, some soft. It's part of what we talked about last week, as Patrick circled his way towards 40.

This party, naturally, was very loud.

Rob: So now you know about the surprise party. But let me fill everyone in who is reading along at home.

Patrick’s wife Katie reached out last year about his 40th birthday and the fact she wanted to surprise him with a big get-together of friends and family. She was probably correct that Chicago in February was going to be a hurdle for some people, but I’m from here and honestly it was part of the draw. Give me salt-bleached streets under a harsh winter sun, blowing snow, and the furnace-heat of bars trying to keep out the cold and the boredom of a slow season in Chicago sports. So I made plans to come out here, and then had to make sure never to offhandedly mention anything that might suggest I’d be back in Chicagoland this winter.

Now the funniest part of this whole experience, for me, was the wait for Patrick to be delivered to the surprise party. For one thing, he’d been lured to a nearby bar in Wrigleyville that turned out to be literally across the street from my hotel. If he’d been at the front door at the wrong moment, he might have seen me parking my car, or beginning my trudge to the brewery where his party was being arranged. For another, Patrick started having such a good time at this sports bar that he didn’t want to leave. We started getting updates as he fell further behind schedule, “He wants to see the end of this game.” “OK he ordered more drinks. I’m trying.” “He has another bet he wants to see pan out.”

But eventually Patrick arrived, the surprise appeared to be near-total and welcome, and we ended up having a lovely party to kick off a lovely weekend of hanging out with Patrick’s friends and family in Chicago. A very Patrick-themed playlist (copious amounts of Weezer, of course) blasted from the speakers while a slideshow of old and recent Patrick photos flickered across a projector screen.

So Patrick, you were genuinely caught off-guard by this party. But I’m also surprised by that, because one of the things that I picked up being around your family this weekend is that you’re very good at marking occasions. 

I think my favorite moment of the weekend was when you talked about how your father made it a point to show up for people, to mark occasions and share the milestones with them, and trust that when you had your own moments you wanted to share, people would show up for you. And that you’ve tried to honor that instruction through your own life.

Your whole family seems to enjoy coming together around milestones and holidays, you have strong friendships that seem like they get nurtured regularly. It doesn’t seem like you’d ever expect your 40th to pass by as a small family dinner with cake and ice cream. 

How is it you didn’t think you’d end up with a big birthday party, or at least cause a problem for Katie by deciding you should throw a big birthday event while she was busy trying to organize this surprise? And is this something your whole family tends to do, or is it really something unique to you via your father and his sense of how family and social obligations should be tended to?

Patrick: First of all, thank you for coming. Though humorously, it’s not the last time I’ll see you, because I’m writing this while trying to finalize plans for the two of us to catch the Chicago Bulls later tonight.

I remain genuinely flabbergasted that my wife pulled this surprise party off. She’s a manager by trade and years ago co-founded an events company, so planning is her expertise. But she is also incapable of telling a lie. Or, as I found out this weekend, it’s merely very hard and causes her incredible and crippling anxiety. She told me that at one point, she used the recent iPhone update that lets you “lock” an app to only opening via Face ID to her messages app, because she worried I’d idly glance at one of her devices.

I was oblivious, though. Utterly. While I’m touched by the weekend’s events, part of what spurred me to pitch our back-and-forth last week was genuine happiness and acceptance with my spot in life. There was nothing sad about the party I did have on Friday with a small group of friends and family. I was genuinely having a blast with my brother and another smaller group of friends hopping from a golf simulator to a goofy sportsbook attached to Wrigley Field, as we irresponsibly placed $5 bets on non-descript college basketball games. (The reason we were late was not me placing another bet, but was an existing bet going not only into overtime but triple overtime. C’mon, no chance I wasn’t gonna see that play out!!!)

The bar was busy downstairs! It made sense for us to head upstairs! But as I made it around the corner and everyone yelled out, my children running over to hug me amidst the noise, as I tried to sputter out a few words while feeling speechless, the moment it crystalized for me how much work my wife had put into all this was briefly seeing you in the back. “Oh, Christ, if Rob is here, I have no idea what else I’m going to find.” And what I found was a wide net of friends and family from across the country, living evidence of the decades I’ve been around, from before I was able to walk, to the very people I helped learn how to walk.

Who’s got it better than us/me?

But I think you earn the right to be in someone’s life. You earn the right to stay there. You earn the right to be wanted there. It’s a value persistent across my dad’s side of the family, which is the vast majority of the family you met over the weekend. I care deeply for my mom’s side of the family, too, but what my dad’s side has is unique. Everyone likes each other. Everyone is not just family—they’re friends. But that didn’t happen by accident, it happened because, like I mentioned in my impromptu speech, they showed up.