John Hanley - Irish American Friend

 

We lost a friend, John Hanley. For years, John played golf with my husband, and they had great fun at the course and at the pub afterwards. Guinness was John's favorite.

When we visited Ireland in 2008, John (who was born in Ireland) happened to be there, and he met us for a day. Knowing I was a Marian devotee, he brought us to the Basilica of Our Lady of Knock.  From Knock, we visited his cousin who has a peat-burning stove.  He explained how families were entitled to digging peat for their use. We had tea and talked and had a very lovely time. 

Not too long ago, John got ill and passed away.  We are very sad about this and extend our sincerest condolences to his family and friends. 

Here are some pictures taken in Ireland with John.  

 

 

  

 

 

 

Rest in peace, John Hanley!

 tags: RIP, friendship, Irish American

Guest Blogger: Paulino Lim Jr ~ Memory of a Lost Friend

 My Guest Blogger is Dr. Paulino Lim Jr (left in the picture; Lupo Grageda is beside him). 

Paulino Lim Jr. is a professor emeritus of English at California State University, Long Beach.

He is a recipient of the 2016 Presidential Award for Filipino Individuals and Organizations Overseas—for his fiction and scholarly essays that are constructive criticisms of the political, social, and religious problems in the Philippines. Also in 2016, his alma mater, the University of Santo Tomas, conferred upon him a lifetime achievement honor—the Parangal Hagbong Award—for significant contributions to Philippine literature. His latest book, Spots of Time: A Memoir of a Mind, was nominated for the Best Book of Nonfiction Prose in English, 38th Philippine National Book Awards (2018).

He is the author of a scholarly monograph on Byron, dramas, three anthologies, a quartet of political novels, and the novel Death of the English Zen Professor.

He shares with us his personal essay "Memory of a Lost Friend" which appears in his blog:  https://paulinolimjr.blogspot.com/

MEMORY OF A LOST FRIEND

How do you relate to someone who is no longer with us – as the saying goes – but whose voice we still hear and whose face we still see in our dreams? Was the person a dear friend, a lover you broke up with, or a spouse you divorced?

Remembering Maryknoller Maricel Lopez Hahn by Marissa Tay

 

My Maryknoll classmate Marissa Tay remembers our classmate Maricel Lopez Hahn who passed away last Aug. 27, 2020.  ~ Cecilia 

Remembering Maricel Lopez Hahn

By Marissa Tay

  My ‘closer friendship’ with Maricel began in 2014. I knew her from way back half a century ago, we were friendly because of our  St. Joseph’s Villa connection, but it was in 2014 that a true friendship blossomed. We met in Toronto 2014 for a visit, on Tere Valenton-Concepcion’s invitation, because Nina Lim-Yuson was attending a conference, and  a handful of us who lived close by to Toronto saw a great opportunity to reconnect with classmates before the big reunion in 2018. 

The Class Reunion - Remembering the Salmon Run by Cecilia Brainard

 

To honor my classmate Maricel Lopez Hahn who passed away last Aug. 27, 2020, I am sharing this personal essay that was first published in Tomas Vol 2, Issue 12, 2nd Semester 2017-2018 (The Journal of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies).

The Class Reunion: Remembering the Salmon Run

by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard 

Copyright 2017 and 2020 by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard


Aside from the two who lived in Toronto, the women who showed up for our class reunion in Toronto travelled from the Philippines, US, UK, and even Switzerland -- twenty-four women, college classmates, friends from Maryknoll days. I hadn’t seen many of them in decades and had lost the threads of their life stories. In many ways, they were strangers to me, but there were a few commonalities that we shared. Most of us were transplants from the Philippines. Many had left Manila in the years following our 1969 graduation.