It was a simple, sparsely attended class reunion in Quisiao where Mario Alano, the Class President, came to close to forging a social bond seemingly getting loose through non-attendance. Myrna Macahasa – Congson’s overseas calls – nagging, almost pestering – triggered the occasion.
All with gray, if not artificially colored, hairs and missing, if not false, teeth, the 40th Grand Reunion was planned, committees were formed and, feigning interests, I simply coasted along.
Approaching dusk, I went home feeling empty, almost bored, about the whole affair. It was raining hard that night and alone in the house, except for the maid (Bebot had her usual pregnancy call and Wayne and Prince had use left for the city), my diary came in handy, like a companion it has always been for close now to 32 years. I had barely started writing when an idea click: What have they all been doing all these forty years?
Setting my diary aside, I penned a letter to Myrna. Part of it reads:
“… The cost? Does it matter now? Can memories be priced? Believe me, Myrna, most of our classmates are not well-off, but I could sense how rich they are in memories secured in the thought that they are loved by those who touched their lives during their innocent years. They are no longer classmates. They are brothers and sisters, the absence of blond toes not with standing. There are now widows and widowers in our midst, some with grandchildren, some others’ ailing, if not home based.
But hearing about our planned reunion in 2004 with you in full attendance, they came, their enthusiasm betraying the hard years, ignoring the social gap that divides the haves from the have-nots. The came because they know that you, we, love them still, embracing them fully with the warmth borne of our high school years. I cannot put a price tag on our souvenir, Myrna. Like you, I intend to do it as a labor of love, aiming always to preserve our memories as no other in SIC has done. That way, our success will be completed for the best in us will be shared, even beyond our willingness to give…”
Myrna’s reaction over the phone was mixed: Would be truthful about their past, as perhaps a good few would? That question sparked meetings, brief and instantaneous.
Jess Fontanos sounded sentimental and encouraged it. I composed the “Vaya Con Dios – a tribute” and they loved it. Lito Vista with her Julie beide him, was the first to be interviewed. Ricly Penalver was next, followed by Enchong Piguing, Zeny de Guzman-Manlangit and Cora Reyes. Before long, I found myself drugged into it, like a heady wine with high spirits. I knew that I had uncored the Genie and, barring regret, couldn’t get it back inside the bottle.
There were too many distractions: daily court hearings, urgent legal pleadings – the paper chase that haunts me daily – professional commitments, both scheduled and spontaneous, and the demands of family life which, above all else, took center stage. And yet, the book took shape, gradually evolving into its own, like a sphinx rising from the ashes. I limited lawyering up to 6:00pm and had the rest of the evening unearthing my literary gems left dormant for years, but over and above chosen career, I truly love the most.
And that was how it all began: an idea conceived during one stormy bight peppered with lightning and thunders akin to a woman’s birth pains. That idea evolved into words that, with our classmates’ life histories, made flesh.
I must admit that I was inspired partly by a great man’s words: “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream of things that never were and say, why not?…” The man’s own wife, equally famous, embellished it with an urgency when she wrote “… we never value life enough when we have it.” And so, looking at the finished product named “Footprints”, I ask, why not…now?
I have experienced a lot of emotions in writing this book; boredom has never been one of them!
NOTE: Genesis is the introduction of the book “FOOTPRINTS, Class ’64” written by Atty. Amadeo R. Fulgado, published in 2005.
