Truth, fiction and lies
Former St. Francis Xavier professor tells all in a shocking yet insightful autobiography
Patrick Walsh spent more than three decades in Antigonish — a place he fell in love with the first day he arrived there.
He was not only a student at St. FX, but later was a professor there, served his municipality, was involved in the church community and became well known to many. For those of you who think you know Patrick — think again. Even he admits he discovered things about himself while writing his autobiography that he didn’t know.
His new book — Truth, Fiction, Lies: Confessions of an Italian-Irish-Catholic-American Immigrant to Canada — started as what he calls a monster of a project for his 60th anniversary of graduating from St. FX.
“I had so many papers and I didn’t realize that when I was going over all these documents, I was reviewing my life. It starts out with a poem that my father wrote to my mother in 1932 and I thought, ‘Well, that’s probably the beginning of me,’” he says with a laugh.
As an English professor who had dealt with fiction his entire career, looking inward to put his own truth on paper was eyeopening.
“I think the biggest lesson I learned was every time I began to think that I had control of my life, that I was a really good guy and I was doing a good job ... the minute that pride crept in — bam. The truth was, I was making a mistake or I had done something I thought was good but turned out not to be,” Walsh admits. “I found this pattern in my life and I had to face it.”
MEDICAL MIRACLE
The author notes that he always been a very persistent man, but he reveals in his book that at the age of 60, a shocking medical discovery was likely one reason he became such an incredibly determined individual.
“I was in class talking to my students and I looked over at a girl whose mouth appeared to be bruised. I was concerned and when we took a break and she came to talk to me and I saw that her mouth was fine. I started looking around the room and anyone with lipstick on looked like they were bruised and I thought to myself, ‘I’m not seeing things right.’”
After class, he recalls driving down the main street in Antigonish and each set of traffic lights he encountered had two green lights — one on top of the other.
“I realized I was seeing double.”
It was initially determined that he had a mild stroke in one eye, but his doctor ordered more tests, and the results he received in a specialist’s office in Halifax shocked Walsh and his wife Jackie.
“The doctor asked what I did for a living and I told him I was an English professor and he replied, ‘That’s amazing.’ He turned to my wife and said.
‘Mrs. Walsh, your husband is fine.’ He showed us the pictures from my MRI — the left frontal lobe of my brain was empty. There is a sac of plain fluid there, but I’m missing the left frontal lobe.”
The doctor added that this condition is actually a birth defect and one Walsh has been living with, unknowingly, all his life. The fact he chose the career he did astonished the specialist, adding that Walsh had “obviously compensated for it.”
“When I looked back, I had trouble in school with reading, and I didn’t talk until I was four years old. And I think that (medical condition) is part of the reason I have this drive and this persistent trait.”
ANTIGONISH: ALWAYS HOME
Walsh’s story wouldn’t be complete without getting into his deep love of Antigonish, the place he will always think of as home.
“I wrote the history of Antigonish years ago and it was a kind of gift to the people because of the great life I had there with my wife and my family. Antigonish is just a wonderful place. I fell in love with it instantly.”
His first day on campus, he remembers a professor speaking about how the need for education continues your whole life and you never stop learning. Walsh loved that concept and it’s one that he lives by to this day.
“Antigonish is part of me now,” he says from Calgary, where he and his wife now reside so Walsh could assist
with the English program at St. Mary’s University. “It was so hard to leave.”
While this autobiography came from his 60th reunion, he has another 60th milestone to celebrate soon — his wedding anniversary. He is quick to add that the true heroine of his new book is his wife, Jackie.
“Life is full of challenges. I have made mistakes and they are in the book — I admit them. But that wedding vow starts new every morning when you wake up. You can’t let up. The problems that we had, when you work them out, you come out the other side wiser, stronger, and it turns out you end up with a healthy and strong relationship. It’s just a blessing.”
And that sentiment is echoed throughout Walsh’s work — that it’s not the things you do that necessarily define your life. Rather, it’s the relationships you build with other people.
“We are all in this same race and we are all trying to find happiness. We have to cooperate and love one another and so that realization has really enriched my life and widened my horizons.”