THIS year, I lost a number of people who were near and dear to me.
My beloved Mama, with whom I sometimes had a love-hate relationship (and what mother-and-daughter relationship doesn’t encounter those bumps in the road?) passed away in June after struggling for a month in the hospital. She was 86.
She had been in and out of the hospital for the past three years after doctors found her bile duct obstructed. After that initial hospital confinement, other health issues slowly cropped up.
My Mama has always been an up-and-about person. Even while I was little, she oversaw the home with daily diligence but wasn’t tied down to it. And even in her 80s, she would often be out of the house with her best friend even before I was awake. (Back then, I would wake up at noon.)
She was very sociable and loved shopping; there were only two places which she frequented—Greenhills and TriNoma. If she and her BFF weren’t shopping, they were playing mahjong with another amiga until the wee hours, puffing away on their cigarettes.
For someone who had been very active for most of her life, it was a struggle for Mama to reconcile with the fact that she was not as strong as she used to be. Each confinement in the hospital just took something away from her.
Her weakening body soon became a burden to her. And, while her mind was still active, and she still managed to have vibrant discussions with us, her family, her friends, or her doctors, we knew she was becoming depressed.
My niece told me that there were times when she’d arrive home—my Mama by then was already staying with my Big Sister—she’d be ready to take Mama out to go shopping, but Mama would pretend to be asleep. No amount of prodding from Big Sister could push Mama to go out for even a walk. She had become very frail already, and needed a wheelchair to move about, but her doctor had advised her to practice walking—to no avail.
But Mama was also very vain. I suppose she didn’t like the idea of going to the mall in a wheelchair that was being pushed by a caregiver. She had always been such a strong family figure, and a wheelchair probably just spelled doom for her.
There were times when Mama would express the wish that Papa—who had left us seven years ago—would take her already. Although Mama had easily bounced back from that, these last few years that were debilitating to her health made her pine to be with Papa all the more.
So in the last days of her life, when the doctors told us that Mama’s recovery might be more difficult than usual—she was already on a feeding tube, semi-conscious, and hooked up to a respirator—we tried to convince ourselves that it was time to let her go. It was extremely difficult to do so but even I knew Mama would hate us for making her hang on hooked up to all these artificial life-support systems.
Indeed, even as we said our good-byes, Mama’s heart would still beat strongly for a week more, with her blood pressure still stable. This was one woman who would go when she was good and ready. And so she did, around 6 am, on the Feast of the Ascension, her blood pressure plunged dramatically, and then she breathed her last.
I miss you a lot, Mama.
* * *
While Mama was in the hospital, a dear media colleague and friend Alvin Capino joined his Creator.
Mr. Caps, whose boisterous laughter filled the airwaves every morning on the radio show “Karambola” on DWIZ 882, had been a constant presence in my life since I decided to rejoin the journalism profession.
I don’t remember when and where I exactly met Mr. Caps, but we had once worked together at a PR firm in the early 1990s. After I became disenchanted with my job there, he was instrumental in helping me rejoin the media industry—physically even walking me to the office of the defunct Today newspaper.
I also had the opportunity to travel with Mr. Caps when we and a few other colleagues got invited by an airline to travel to New York. I remember standing in line with Mr. Caps and a reporter at Times Square trying to get half-priced tickets to watch Sunset Boulevard on Broadway. He then wandered off and when he came back, he showed us our tickets, which I supposed he had bought from a scalper.
The problem was, we already had been able to buy tickets from the booth which were cheaper than what he got. Realizing this, Mr. Caps marched off and looked for the scalper, accosted the latter in his trademark booming voice for selling more expensive show tickets, and got back his money. It was the scariest thing! I was fearful for Mr. Caps—it was New York after all, and what if the scalper had some Mafia syndicate backing him?
Of course, by the time Norma Desmond started singing “Surrender”, we were already asleep in our seats, snoring away as jetlag finally kicked in. Try as I could to force my eyelids to open, they would not. All that trouble for nothing! Hahaha.
Later on, when Mr. Caps finally invaded the radio, he and his fellow Karambolistas (Jonathan de la Cruz, Ed Javier, Cong. Sonny Escudero, Rep. Teddy Boy Locsin, Cong. Boying Remulla, Dodo Dulay) would keep listeners in stitches as they took turns bashing another idiot politico or inefficient government official in their own brand of humor. He would never fail to rib me on air when it was UAAP season—he being an Atenean, and I being a La Sallian. When Mr. Caps was already too sick to go to work, the Karambolistas decided it was time to close down the show. It was the saddest thing.
I will always remember Mr. Caps for his great appetite for life and laughter. And while his columns and criticisms against the powers that be were scathing, I will never forget him for his kindness. I can actually hear him in my head joking, “’Wag mo pagkakalat!” (“Don’t spread it around!”)
It was such a joy and privilege to know you Mr. Caps. ’Til we meet again. (Pero huwag muna ha. Tagalan natin. ;p)