AN UNFULFILLED LAST WISH

PIGO' CEMETERY

in the late 1950s

In the summer of 1959, Bishop Baumgartner was in a bit of a crisis. The Stigmatine priests who staffed Fr Dueñas Memorial School told him only that April or May that they wouldn't be returning at all to the school. That meant Baumgartner needed to find 6 or 7 priest teachers in three months.

He turned to the Capuchins who did the best they could to get some of their priests to serve as principal and to teach, while allowing the first (few and male) lay teachers to teach at Fr Dueñas.

But, in order to help run the school, the Capuchins in New York sent one of their own to Guam, specifically to teach at Fr Dueñas. He also had, unlike most of the other priests, a college degree. His name was Father Donan Hickey. The understanding was that Fr Donan was to be on Guam and teach at Fr Dueñas for a few years.

Shortly after Father Donan arrived, someone took him on a tour of the island. Fr Donan told me this story himself.

The tour ended at an unusual place - a cemetery! Pigo' Cemetery. As the car drove into the cemetery, Fr Donan saw this huge, white marble cross on top of a rock. It made such a huge impression on Father Donan. He told the driver the following, "This is where I want to live, die and be buried." Fr Donan continued to live the rest of his life on Guam, teaching at Fr Dueñas and being pastor of a few parishes. What was supposed to be a short time on Guam turned out to be a lifetime commitment.

Except that...

In 1993, Fr Donan went back to his home state of New York for a little break and to visit his family. While he was there, his health declined. It declined so bad that he couldn't get out of bed. He died in New York, and the superior decided to bury him at the friars' cemetery in Yonkers, New York.

His last desire for his earthly life - to be buried at Pigo' - never came about.

I wonder, though. He was bedridden in New York, but lucid. He knew he was approaching death. Had he not mentioned to anyone, or even insisted, that he be buried in Guam? Perhaps he resigned himself to the circumstances he found himself in.

FR DONAN'S GRAVE IN YONKERS, NEW YORK

Not where he wanted to be buried!

Alas, we do not decide where we are born nor where we die.

The huge white marble cross is still at Pigo' Cemetery, but on top of the new mausoleum. The big rock is gone.

CHILDHOOD ACCIDENTS

In the photo above is the Sinajaña I grew up in, before Urban Renewal changed it all in 1971 and 1972.

The village of my childhood was a village where the streets were narrow and the natural playgrounds of the neighborhood kids when a car wasn't passing.

We had no concept of private property and we leisurely moved in groups from one family's property to another, making use of whatever we found on the street, brush or yard to make into toys. A stick and an empty tin can were more than enough for a few of us to get a half hour's worth of fun.

The picture also reminds me of two accidents I had as a kid. Two accidents aren't much and one of my brothers got into much more, to the extent of crashing his bicycle into a barbed wire fence, dripping with blood walking back home where our Auntie Rita, whom we all called Nina, burst into tears.

But I had at least two mishaps to "brag" about.

BAMBOO CANNONS

One accident involved my right foot.

One afternoon I was walking around the neighborhood, bored and looking at what was up. I noticed that a bunch of guys (all in their teens) were under a house. Many houses in those days were built on posts (haligi) so that the space under the house (påpa' såtge) could be used for storage, chicken coops or whatever.

I had no idea what those boys (older than me, I was around 8) were doing under that house but it sounded like fun. So I started to creep under the house. About five feet into the space, which was somewhat dark, my right foot, wearing a zori or rubber slipper, went right into a coffee can filled with melted wax.

Those boys had been making bamboo cannons, as seen in the pic above from another country. They were shooting soda pop cans! But they needed melted wax to seal holes, as the wax dried. I had made the mistake of stepping into their can of hot, melted wax made from stick candles.

So I cried like a baby and out of the dark, muddled shadows of teenage boys emerged my brother Mark who took me out of the underspace. I learned later that my other brother Carl was also in the group. Mark was around 16 years old at the time. He carried me in his arms to our house, just about a block away. Both mom and dad were not home. There weren't cellular phones in those days. Luckily it was around 4pm so we just waited for an hour till mom got home from work. All the while I was crying at the burning sting in my foot. All Mark could do was hold me on his lap. I looked at my foot and thought my skin was peeling off. In reality, it was the wax hardening from cooling off. Lol.

When mom came home, she drove me to the Seventh Day Adventist clinic which, in those days, was where Simply Food and their church is today, in Agaña Height across the Governor's House. There a nurse put wet strips of something or other on my foot then bandaged it in gauze.

In the end, whatever burn I suffered was minor. My skin didn't even peel. After 24 hours, I was good as new.

FELL INTO AN OUTHOUSE

In those days, we had outdoor toilets here and there. Kommon sanhiyong, in Chamorro. Most houses had indoor plumbing by then, but some either didn't have an indoor toilet or they just preferred doing their business outside.

I was walking past the Ramos house and saw a big hole in their yard. I can't say for sure the hole was on the Ramos property, but their house was not far from the hole.

Being the curious person I am, as seen in my burnt foot incident, I walked over to the hole to look inside. It was a rainy day and the soil was slippery. I just remember being impressed by how deep it was and how red the slimy soil was.

Before you know it, I found myself inside the hole!

My feet had slipped on the muddy edge of the hole. I didn't hurt myself going down, but now I saw no way of getting out of the hole! I was between 8 and 10 years old at the time; maybe 5 feet tall, give or take a few inches. The hole was at least 6 or 7 feet deep.

I started screaming; not too much; not as if I were drowning or in a panic. Just yelling out "help" every minute or so.

Eventually, someone heard me and after around 5 minutes one of the Ramos teenage boys was looking down at me from the top of the hole. If memory serves, someone just used their hand to reach in and grab my hand and pull me out.

The only thing injured was my pride.

I later found out that the hole was dug for a new outhouse. Thank God I didn't fall into a hole that already had its grand opening.

FATHER CORNELIUS AND THE BULL

Father Cornelius Murphy was the lone Capuchin missionary priest of Luta (Rota).

In 1967, Luta had less than 1000 people. Very few residents were not native-born, and Father Cornelius was one of the few Caucasians living there. He was also the one and only Catholic priest, at a time when virtually all the islanders were Catholic.

Being a priest, Father Cornelius prayed his breviary at least twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. The breviary is a prayer book made up largely of psalms.

Father Cornelius decided to pray his breviary one day while walking outside on the grass.

So focused was he praying from the book, "attente et devote," as they say in Latin (attentively and devoutly) that he did not notice the rush of feet coming up behind him. A bull had gotten loose and started charging at the priest.

Right when Father Cornelius bowed his head at the Gloria Patri (Glory Be), the bull smacked Father's behind, and now Father Cornelius was flying in the air, closer to heaven.

Fortunately, the only thing injured was Father Cornelius' priestly dignity. He lived to tell the tale by way of Ham Radio, which the missionaries on the different islands used in those days when telephone service was unreliable.

Father Sylvan, listening to the story on Saipan, let his pipe fall from his mouth and said into his microphone, "Repeat, please, repeat....hahaha."

Another missionary, Father Emery, had a hard time deciding which headline to use when he wrote a little article about this incident :

FRIAR HAS BULL SESSION

BULL HAS LOW OPINION OF FRIAR

PRAYING FRIAR FALLS FOR BULL

BULL'S EYE ON FRIAR

FRIAR GETS RISE FROM BULL

LUTA