In Memoriam

TODAY MARKS THE 10TH death anniversary of friend and neurologist Tom McNorton, founder of Hawaii Center for Sleep Medicine and former Ateneo biology classmate. He and his brother Mike were my mother's special guests in Pinamalayan in the mid-70s, eating native chicken butchered by late cousin Ernesto (Is that cat?), snorkeling rocky Pili's reef with bloody soles, telling cousin Bong to turn his jeep's engine off and economize on gas as we drove downhill to a fishpond in Matulatula, giving up on climbing the "stairway to heaven" at the base of a hill in Pola, puking on that cramped jeepney ride through winding roads going to Puerto Galera. Last time I saw him was in the early 90s at a dinner of chicken papaya prepared by his wife Rose in their house in Kailua. He bade me take $300 to help me get established in Honolulu, but it didn't work out and I haven't paid him back. Godspeed, Mick!

Tom (holding a Polaroid photo) with brothers Chris and Mike in Fraser, Michigan

Mililani, Hawaii