Patrick Paul Bjerke

Patrick Bjerke, 33, of Fort Collins, CO, formerly of Fargo, ND, died Sunday, December 18, 2016 at his home in Fort Collins.

Patrick was a kind, gentle soul, loved by many. He is survived by his parents, Greg & Nancy Bjerke, his sister, Katie (Andy) Doeden, his niece, Claire Doeden, his nephews, Graham and Charlie Doeden, his uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents.

Patrick struggled with alcoholism from his teenage years until the time of his death. He diligently tried many, many times to conquer this disease and we all enjoyed three wonderful years from 2011 to 2014 when he allowed himself to be embraced by the FM recovery community. Those were the best years of our lives with him. During those years, he was active in the local recovery community and thrived.

Rising above his lifelong love for UND hockey, he embraced his class work at NDSU, graduating with honors in Mathematics and Statistics. He found the love of his life in numbers. The duality of finite answers and the infinite possibilities of derivatives fascinated him.

In the fall of 2014, Patrick moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to enroll in graduate school at CSU in mathematics. He would have been a wonderful professor, but this quest was derailed by alcoholism.

We are eternally grateful to our family and our many friends in the recovery community for their friendship and love for Patrick. So many loved him and tried to help him, but he stubbornly wanted to “figure it out on his own”.

We are relieved that Patrick is no longer hurting. Going through his townhouse and computer files after his death revealed the progression of his alcoholism that had been hidden from us.

As parents, we are grateful that we learned to “Hate the Disease, but Love the Patient”.  We reminded ourselves of that many, many times over the last 15 years and it allowed us to express our love to Pat every time we saw him. He died knowing that he was loved.

We are still crying, but many of the tears are tears of gratitude.  We are grateful for the support and love from our friends, family and our extended recovery community family.

We truly are grateful that Patrick is at peace.

Patrick would be upset if there wasn’t a Big Lebowski reference in this missive, so if you listen carefully, the voice of Walter Sobchak can be heard, saying, “Goodnight Sweet Prince”.