It is November according to the calendar, but as I write in the early days of the month, it seems more like a September. The temperature rises up to 80’s as the day progresses, the humidity seems almost to have disappeared, and nights are cooler. We have even opened the windows and doors! November is the last month of the hurricane season. We are anxious to see the season end but with weather like this it becomes difficult to really mean it. We have had a record hurricane season, so for it to end without another would be a blessing. We have a conflict, we want the storms to disappear so we want November over, but we are having such great weather we don’t want to rush it! As some wag once said, “the only thing you can do about the weather, is talk about it!”
I am continuing with my physical therapy. I joined Gold’s Gym, which is but 5 minutes away. I make three days a week workouts days and the effects have been good. It is now the eleventh month of the year, and I had my surgery in the fifth month (May) and the prognosis by our surgeon was that it would take about six months to heal. So it appears to be coming a fact. I pray it will continue.
I wrote a verse when I was healing from my bypass surgery in 1994. I titled it “Healing” (How original!) and it goes like this:
Slowly the body inches back
To do the things it could.
But the mind races ahead
To do the things it would!
Healing is such a slow process,
You never seem ahead.
One moment up, another down,
Or is it just in your head?
I look forward to simple things
Like a good night’s sleep,
A walk in the sun,
And to the day the healing is done!
The verse was printed and framed on wood and says, “ As Published by the National Library of Poetry”. I couldn’t tell you where and if it was published elsewhere, but its thoughts about healing still apply. I can happily say now it seems “the healing is done”. I have had a few walks, but not with too much sun and have little or no trouble sleeping.
November brings to mind those who have gone to heaven in the month, Mom, Frank, and Win. But it also has birthdays! Donna McSorley on the 4th, Katie Baker reaches ‘sweet sixteen’ on the 15TH! Kristen Doyle has one on the 16th and Meaghan McSorley’s is on the 23rd. On the 12th of November we celebrate the marriage of Mary and Ron Yake, now marking number 11! Mary is the youngest of my McSorley clan. It is difficult to believe that that ‘little girl’ is now a Mom of three guy , has been married 11 years, and is now the CEO AmeriChoice health plan of Pennsylvania! It reminded me of a note I found from my brother Frank, then Bishop of Jolo, to another brother Pat. He commented how unbelievable it seemed that that little kid, (I was the youngest of the seven boys) is now a “Commissioner” in the city government! Tempus Fugit!
Thirty five years ago this month my sister Marge Walsh and I traveled to the Sulu Islands to attend the burial of our brother Frank, then the Bishop of Jolo, Sulu. The Sulu Islands run from the south end of the Philippine Islands almost to Borneo. They were then under the government of the Philippine Islands. They lie between the Celebes Sea and the Sulu Sea. There are 457 Islands and the largest one is Jolo. It has a city of the same name where Frank built a cathedral, which now holds his body and where the last service would be offered for him.
Our flight was long and made longer by a typhoon hitting Manila while we were over the Pacific. We took a detour and landed on Wake Island. We later learned that this was necessary since the typhoon had knocked out all the power at the airport so we could only land during daylight. When we arrived at Wake we had been in flight for 22 hours and most of it in darkness. We finally arrived in Manila in hot and humid weather. The airport floor was covered with water, in some places a couple of inches thick. No one was there to meet us, as expected! The Philippine Airlines agent takes us in tow and to his office. The office has no air-conditioning working, no lights, and a phone that worked on and off. We decide to look for a hotel but found all of them booked due to the Pope arriving in a few days! We are now seemingly stranded with no clothes since baggage did not arrive with the flight and no room to stay and no answer to our call to the Oblate House in Manila! We were so tired we couldn’t even work up the energy to be angry or upset. As we stood there contemplating our next possible move, up walked a small Filipino and introduced himself, he was our anticipated escort! We got a hotel room and on the way we stopped to buy some clothes since there will be no flight or baggage from San Francisco until the next day. I learned in purchasing some T-shirts that “large” is a relative term. Filipino “large” is more like our “medium” We checked in to the hotel and then Marge is off to visit some friends living there in Manila that she knew. We had a grand dinner with Bishop Manqeau, Frank’s superior, and eight other Oblate Father. We toasted the Bishop and heard stories of his ‘gusto’ or energetic service for the Lord. The next day we began our trek to Jolo in the Islands of Sulu.
We began our last leg around 7 AM. As we flew I think of Frank. His friends think of him as a man with “gusto”, energy galore, and had remembered him last night. I recall how in the 60’s he spent about 6 months of the year in U.S. collecting money for the projects in Jolo. I helped in running a ‘night at the races’ as one of the fundraiser. I often thought that one of these days I would go out to Jolo and see what those funds had produced. But I never did. So here I was heading for Jolo to bury him, my brother the fundraiser for Christ.
We had an unscheduled stop. We landed at Iloilo for fuel. The typhoon had delayed delivery of the same to Manila. The expected half-hour or so stop went on for four hours. After about 25 minutes we, Marge and I, and others got a ride in the back of a truck into the town. We were walking around the main street looking for a restaurant. The town reminded me of Puerto Rico with its crowding and poverty evident. Suddenly Marge sees a store, a ‘botica’ a drugstore, and remembers friends of hers, the Tirols, owned it. In we went and sure enough Rita Tirol was there. We get a “silver lining” to the clouds of our delay and disappointment, an unexpected visit with a friend. We visited her home behind the store. It is magnificent. Ruth is a widow at 35 with a 17-year-old son. We had a grand meal and she drove us back to the airport where we learned the plane is finally refueled. We are off to Zamboango the last stop before Sulu. It was in the news in 2002 in the story of a husband and wife missionary team who were abducted by Muslim terrorist. They were held for ransom for more than a year and the husband is shot just as they are being rescued. I read the story from a book written by the wife entitled “In the Presence of Mine Enemies”
When we arrived friends of Frank, Bishop Mongeau, and more Oblate priests met us. (Frank was a member of the order of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate). We began our last leg now, nearly two days of travelling having past, and finally see Jolo and the Cathedral rising above all other buildings in the afternoon sun. When we land people anxious to greet us surround us. We feel like celebrities working our way through the crowd. We dropped our bags off at the Carmelite building where we would stay and headed for the Cathedral. Frank is lying in state there in a hand made mahogany coffin. We heard a report that the Oblates tried to move the body to the Oblate cemetery north in Cotabato but were advised by the mayor and the people that they wouldn’t allow it. They even talked of the use of arms if necessary. They made it clear that he will be buried here among people who loved him.
We were met at the airport by Rich McSorley, my brother John’s son, who was completing his studies here for his degree. We went with him to the Cathedral and see the body of Frank in his full liturgical dress including the miter, that pointy hat bishop’s wear. I thought it appropriate that a Richard McSorley should be close to Frank as he was dying. Richard was my father’s name. He was 85 years of age then and fearful of flying so he stayed home. He noted how strange it was that his oldest son had died and he the father was still living.
There was a civil ceremony at nine AM. The mayor and seven other eulogized Frank. Marge and I offered responses. I noted that today would have been 58 years after the marriage of Richard and Rita, his mom and dad. Marge’s was better and she ended with a Filipino cheer Frank often used, “Mubuhay”! It could be translated as “well done” The mass was celebrated with the three Bishops and some 39 priest con-celebrating. All in white vestments; the prodigal son had gone home. A speaker at the mass was Peter Naimo, a former Muslim whose father was a local Imam. (I’ll continue later, until then Pax Tecum!)