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Read this if you're new (or bored...).
2005-06-20 - 9:15 p.m.
Requiem
Fr. Jim Gormley, 81, died Friday, June 17, 2005. He was born on Ben Franklin's birthday, in South Philadelphia, to an Irish-Catholic family, the second of two children. His grandfather came to the Unites States in the 1890s. He helped raise Jim and his sister El after their father, James Senior, died, presumably of ailments that resulted from having served in World War I. Though I don't recall if his family moved in with the grandfather or the grandfather moved in with the family, the grandfather was a strong father figure, who was rememberede by Fr. Jim for his thick brogue and wooden leg, received after an accident involving an elevator shaft and a lack of elevator resulted in the loss of the natural leg. Jim attended Saint Joe's Prep on scholarship. He enjoyed harassing his sister about the fact that, tough she was a year older, they were in the same grade and he was studying more advanced material. He excelled in Latin, English, and History, and in 1941, at the age of 17, joined the Jesuit seminary. His best friend in grade and high school joined the military as a pilotat this time. Though he survived the war, he was killed in air exercises in peacetime shortly after the war. In seminary, Jim would often get in trouble for things he didn't realize he was doing. He struck a close friendship with a fellow seminarian, and it took years for him to realize exactly *why* his superiors didn't want the two of them spending a lot of time alone (and he was pretty horrified when he found out what they suspected...). When in town with a few other seminarians, he passed a group of young ladies and bumped into them. He said, "Excuse me," and was later reprimanded for talking to girls. His first year in seminary, he wrote a play entitled "Beer and Pretzels," which won the playwrighting contest and was performed. He later forbid his Adopt-a-Pop visitors from tracking down and reading this play. We suspect it is pretty inappropriate. When Jim's grandfather died, he had to petition for special permission to attend the funeral, as at the time seminarians were only to leave the grounds for the funeral of a parent. After explaining that his grandfather had raised him, and finding out another priest had business near where the funeral was held, he was given permission to attend the funeral for exactly one hour -- no wake, no viewing, no socializing with his family. He served at the Prep as Vice Principal until he was struck with a heart attack. Eventually, he would return, teaching Latin, English, and History, and serving as chaplain for the football team. He was an avid football fan, and used his rank as a Jesuit to meet Joe Paterno while he studied up at Penn State. Paterno respected this rank, having attended Jesuit schools. He wrote three histories, one of Scranton, one of Wheeling Jesuit, and one of the Prep. He had no surviving relatives at the time of his death. His sister and her husband both died with no children. Everything they had was left to Fr. Gormley, even though he told his brother-in-law repeatedly to leave it to the order isntead. After all, the order would just get in anyway, but since it was left to Fr. Gormley, it would be taxed first. At Manresa Hall, where he spent the last years of his life in declining health, he took joy in visitors, fine whiskey, and Murder She Wrote and Law and Order reruns. The last day I visited him, he was in good spirits. He enjoyed visitng with me, and he also had a visitor in the 7-year-old grandson of one of the nurses. The three of us had a great conversation on who would win in a fight -- Batman or Superman (It's Batman. Seriously. No one beleives me!), and where graham crackers come from (Canada, apparently). The boy promised to visit every day the following week; this, unfortunately, was not to be. I told him the story of the girl in my graduating class who was murdered a few weeks ago. He found it appalling (as one does), and told me he was glad
I'm not mixed up with people like this girl's ex-boyfriend/killer. He told me he would hate it if I died, and said if someone did something like that to me, he would kill them. A man of peace -- to the point where he would use his peaceful nature to seriously piss off his less patient antagonists -- vowing vengeance. After the visit, he attended a barbecue and cocktail hour that was held for the priests at the infirmary. All in all, a good day. He took sick the following day, was in severe pain, feverish, and unresponsive. I was the last of the members of Adopt-a-Pop to visit him on a regular basis, and I do sometimes wonder if, knowing that, he was just holding out til my graduation, getting the most of out me before letting go. But I guess that would be flattering myself. He is survived by his brother Jesuits; by his fellows of the 1941 class at the Prep; by his visitors through Adopt-a-Pop; and by the various nurses and staff at Manresa Hall. The funeral was an appropriate mix of joy and sadness. I've never seen the body of someone I cared about before -- the few open casket funerals I'd been to were of people I didn't know well, and when my aunt, and then my uncle died, they were both closed-casket services (my aunt died of brest cancer, and my uncle was not discovered until a few days after the heart attack that killed him. Presumably neither was in any shape to be displayed). He didn't look real. He was alwasy so expressive -- usually smiling, but otherwise angry, or in pain, or feeling *something*. In his last months, eh would tell me about all the people he looked forward to seeing again, about how he'd pray for me and watch over me, about how he wondered if he'd done something wrong to deserve being punished by being so immobilized, so in pain. An active man, a busy man, a writer and teacher and football fan, he was in a wheelchair or a bed, in severe pain from arthritis and other afflictions, under heavy medication that affected his short-term memory (and may have been aided by some measure of senility), couldn't write, could barely read. Each week, I would read to him from his Time magazine, always starting with the quotes of the week, often explaining what the context behind them. I would sometimes then read the milestones, to get him talking about the old movie stars mentioned. He once told me that his father would take he and his sister to movies the priest at church had said were forbidden, and they once had to actualy avoid said priest one Saturday as they were leaving the theater! At an Adopt-a-Pop party, the priests were served chips and juice and given "unscramble the Halloween word" puzzles to do (example question: "Oob"). I cracked jokes about how the Jesuits were all of legal age and should have something stronger to drink. Other girls looked at me funny, but Father Gormley thought it was hilarious. If nothing else, I know I made him laugh many times. There's an official obituary HERE, but I wanted to write something of my own. I know I'm forgetting stuff, but I'm sure I'll be adding to this, especially after I meet with some of his other younger friends this weekend to toast him off in proper Irish Wake style.
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