Eulogy For A Friend

First, she was my boss. The workplace doesn’t exactly lend itself to the establishment of ties beyond the immediate and superficial, and when I met her, a friendship wasn’t exactly top of mind. She was incorrigible and demanding, but also pleasant and patient. She wasn’t the kind of boss you’d hate; more like one you’d tolerate. We worked together, and I didn’t think I could squeeze anything more out of that basic, banal relationship.

She left before I did. (The office, I mean). People spew out the generic and often meaningless “Let’s keep in touch,” but, surprisingly, we really did. She would text or call at odd moments just to say hello. She’d share stories about her family, how she moved one daughter to another school and how the other one was starting college soon. I’d tell her how things were going at my new job while we had ensaymada and hot chocolate at her new office. We’d make plans when we were in each other’s neighborhoods. She’d ask for contacts or bounce story ideas off me while I borrowed the occasional suitcase or ask her for career advice.

I never really thought about why we were in each other’s lives: she was a fortysomething wife and mother of two daughters, whose greatest joy in life was spending time with her family, and I was a thirtysomething single guy whose Saturday nights were spent in rock concerts or greasy bars with cheap beers and a cloud of cigarette smoke perpetually hanging overhead. But I always picked up when she called, and she did the same for me. Always, no fail.

The meet-ups became more infrequent, as these things often go, but each one was a welcome respite from the toils of everyday life. Her presence was a safe space, where I could exhale my troubles and inhale good-natured ribbing. “Peeeej, kilala mo ko,” or, “Peeeej, alam mo na yan” constantly escaped her lips, as if we had known each other all our lives and I was supposed to already be aware of the advice du jour.

When she called to tell me about the disease, she was crying and I was dumbstruck. Speechless. What else can you say in a situation like that? No, I don’t know that everything’s going to be all right, and no, I don’t know that she can beat the crap out of it.

Cancer. My least favorite zodiac sign, invading the life of a person who least deserved it.

It came and went, and there were good days and bad. Not much changed in our relationship: there were still the unexpected calls and texts about this and that, and the effort to see each other despite the distraction that is life. There were updates about chemo, and I saw her a few times when she was completely hairless because of it. At her suggestion I even did a story about a foundation for people fighting the disease. She got better, and for a while I could almost pretend the cancer was just a bad dream, because there she was in front of me, full head of hair, all-smiles and animated, telling me how proud she was of her now-in-UP daughter.

But then she got sick again. And sicker. Apart from the occasional visits to the hospital, she never told me about the bad days. When we talked it was almost always about some random thing; an opportunity to do freelance work for a visiting international broadcast network, names of people she could possibly feature, industry contacts. She would call and she never let on that anything was out of the ordinary. And so I became complacent, settling back into the routine of our familiar, comforting relationship.

And then she died. A mutual friend, Dennis, called to tell me she was looking for me. I had some free time that day and asked him where she was and that I would love to see her, too. “Wala pang place e,” he said. I didn’t understand and asked again if she was at home. “Yun na yun,” was all he could say. And then I knew.

Condensing a rich, remarkable life into a few words and sentences—it just can’t be done. Volumes of full-length books aren’t enough to capture the essence and beauty of a soul, especially one as good and as pure as hers. We sometimes wonder how completely arbitrary life and death can be, and make feeble attempts to rationalize the order in which we all, well, “move on.”

I won’t do that. Instead I just choose to revel in the memory of an extraordinary human being. She radiated kindness, joy and enthusiasm; a constant reminder that truly good people exist and that when you find them, you hold on to them and do everything to keep them in your life as long as you can. Until they let go, and then you let them go.

Arlene was a mother, wife, daughter, sister and colleague. How lucky I am to have called her friend.