Michael Patrick Patterson

Michael Patrick Patterson was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 6, 1965.  Sylvia Simmons, Michael’s mom, raised him as a single mother.  Michael’s life started out in full in Towson, Maryland, at Courthouse Square Apartments where he excelled in intellectual pursuits and sports.  He attended Pleasant Plains Elementary and later Calvert Hall College HS, an elite prep school located in Towson, MD.  Michael first became known to people beyond his family and friends when he initiated a bike-a-thon for a fellow Calvert Hall classmate who passed away suddenly.  At 15 years of age and with his mom’s permission, Mike biked up to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and back to Towson, MD every day for ten days to raise funds.  Michael’s inspiration and passion generated much publicity and funds to help build a scholarship in the classmate’s honor, a classmate he never met. 

Michael was an “A” student.  He joined the debate team traveling up and down the east coast to high schools in New York City, Philadelphia and Washington DC to debate top tier high school debaters.  He excelled at every sport he tried, Cross Country, Tennis, Swimming, Baseball and was awarded many trophies.  He loved camping, fishing and hiking the Appalachian Trail.  He was best known for his caring demeanor and self deprecating humor.  His love for animals was well known, his passion was to become a veterinarian.  Brother Rene Sterner, head of Calvert Hall commended Mike for his help saving a dog which needed help. 

Michael asked for a one way ticket to Portland, Oregon as his high school graduation present.  Michael had decided he wanted to bike The Bicentennial Bike Trail  across the United States, a journey he took alone.  He flew to Portland and biked back to Virginia Beach, Virginia in 27 days.  His journey took him through Boise, Idaho where he stopped for a day to help his uncle deliver a weekly paper he published on fishing.  He detoured through Fort Collins, Colorado.  Michael took two days off to attend his freshman orientation at Colorado State University where he had been accepted as a student to study to be a veterinarian.  To commemorate his extraordinary experience, he dramatically filled half of a small container with Pacific Ocean water and the other half with Atlantic Ocean water when he completed the ride.

Michael often spoke of how this extraordinary experience forever changed his  perception of himself.  He had an opportunity to find himself and to begin understanding his purpose in life. After two fun filled years there he transferred to NYU and majored in Psychology and Italian.  Mike came back to Baltimore to open up a business with his mom called Cinamatheque, an independent video rental store known for renting art films, independent cinema and niche foreign films.  It was voted Best of Baltimore by the Baltimore Magazine and City Paper.  He became a local icon, meeting filmmakers like John Waters, and artists and intellectuals alike who frequented the businesses for his knowledge and good humor as much for any film selection.  Mike and his mom eventually opened three outlets around Johns Hopkins University, Mt. Vernon Baltimore’s historic center and in Virginia before selling the businesses in 1996.

Michael’s life and horizons were opening up many opportunities, many possibilities.  Michael was an accomplished actor who auditioned and was contracted to be in television, once for a soap opera in New York City and another for a corporate commercial based in San Francisco, a place he loved for its rugged and beautiful nature and open and tolerant people.  His love of New York City and the streaming throngs of humanity which filled its streets led him to live there for several years, where he made many friends from around the world.  Michael then went on to receive a Masters Degree from prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Liberal Arts, an experience he shared with his mom who received her MA degree there at the same time.  It’s interesting to note that both were the first in their family to receive a high school education.

Michael’s diligent and Zen-like quest for meaning and experience eventually led him to make a journey to Italy where he studied in Florence.  Owning a business enabled Michael to travel solo through the back areas of Brazil and the Amazon, Australia and its outback, Korea, Greece, England and lastly to India.  It was India where Michael spiritual development was forever cemented. 

Michael had long been a spiritual person.  Raised a Methodist, Michael was encouraged to try different religions by his mother to see what “fit”.  Michael’s quest led him to meet Mother Theresa in San Diego where she was staying with local sisters in the early 1990’s.  Mother Theresa encouraged Michael to find himself through God and through sharing himself with the poor.  She invited him to her life’s work the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta where Mike stayed with her for 6 months journeying with her all over India to assist her in her good works.  Michael returned a changed man.  Confident and silent, Michael never bragged about his exploits, they were accomplishments he kept to himself.  He continued to volunteer his services to local organizations which helped the homeless in Baltimore. 

Michael felt a calling to join the priesthood, an idea nagging him since his youth, and moved to Manhattan.  While attending St. John’s in The Village, he volunteered to sleep one night a week with the homeless at St. Joseph’s Church.  Michael continued his work with The Missionaries of Charity, where he also stayed over one night a week working the people with HIV and others who needed his guidance and presence. Later Mike entered the seminary and was an associate pastor of the St. Stephen’s Traditional Episcopal Church in Timonium, MD. 

It was at this stage that the ugly scourge of mental illness emerged.  Michael’s struggles with the growing ferocity of the disease were epic, as were his many accomplishments in his young and precious life.  Mike stayed close to his mom toward the end, joined the Catholic Church, walked many miles as he was well known to do when thinking, and on December 18, 2006 at 41 years of age, ended his life.  Michael is survived by his mother Sylvia Simmons. 

The Slide show narrative click here

Baltimore Sun’s Memoriam Page click here

 

"Michael brought such compassion and joy to the world. Nothing stopped him from going for his dreams. He is an inspiration and his spirit will remain with me always."

 

"He was a wonderful friend and deeply cared about people and animals. He had caring eyes that made woman melt and a smile that made you smile."

 

"Michael was love and grace personified."

 

"He seemed to appear when people needed him most."

"Michael was a gentle, loving, sensitive caring man."

 

"Just as he was, with his good mind, and his kind heart, he was all that God could desire."

 

"Michael was a dreamer, a worldly man well beyond his years."