OUR only daughter, Paula, was stricken with COVID. Though asthmatic and allergic to countless matters, she chose to isolate herself in her room.
She is rabid anti-vaxxer, and opted to treat herself and her likewise sick boyfriend the way she thought best.
Through suob, Ivermectin, Vitamin C, virgin-coco oil, and deep breathing. She got steadily well.
In probably her critical passage through the infection where her left eye got badly inflamed and bulged, her cat, Luna, who stayed in the garage, strangely died.
Nobody knew why. But the cat’s left eye was gone, as if it was gouged out.
Do you believe in tubos? That is a folk belief where your pet sacrifices or exchanges her life to save you.
This is not the first time that this has happened to our daughter. When she was young, she was always pale and balinguynguyin (nose bleeder).
We suspected she had anemia so we brought her to a blood specialist. We went back to them several times because they said that their findings were inconclusive.
What was so difficult about anemia? Aren’t they supposed to just count red versus white corpuscles?
In our probably third or fourth time, the doctors were smiling and told us they had ruled out leukemia. Huh? They did not tell us this was their suspicion all along.
When we got back home in Teacher’s Village, we found out that our only cat in the house, Kitty, was found dead in the back garden. She was not sick nor was she wounded.
My wife and I recalled this ancient belief of tubos, the bartering of souls, especially with cats as the holder of tokens.
But cats they have plenty of at the UP College of Fine Arts.
Are they Garfield fat and indulgent that they wish to stay on earth and not trade even one of their seven lives for those who care for them?
This span of year has been particularly sad with a succession of UP Fine Arts teachers dying.
I would like to tick off with Professor Maggie Simpliciano, a livewire and brilliant graphic designer, who was one of my mentors. She died of pneumonia.
Then there was Jack Pilar, art critic and historian, who once tipped me off about a triptych by my Dad, that was bought by mysterious collectors.
Breaking my heart further was the departure of Joey Tanedo, a thinker and strategist.
He was one of my students, but I learned a lot from him. COVID and co-morbidities did him in.
Unexpectedly and quickly following was Neil Doloricon, one of Joey’s buddies and who the latter egged to be a dean of the college. He was a forceful social critic with his art.
Joey, Neil, together with other friends sharpened each other’s pencils over gallons of beer. I attest that erudition can precipitate from loud discourses on politics, women, and art theories.
Just the other day, Romy Gacad, another student of mine, their batchmate, finally flew, after months of battle using alternative remedies. His mind remained sharp as his lenses.
Ahhh. When things get normal (as normal could), it would be like awakening from a long slumber speckled just so with bad dreams.
Many people in my part of the world will be gone. If life is indeed a Netflix serial, the ensuing days would be new episodes and new characters. With spin-offs even.
There were other supporting stars and cameo figures who returned to dust within the recent two weeks.
One was Noli Aurillo, that abstract expressionist master with the guitar.
I was mesmerized when I first saw and heard him and I began to book him for art activities. He claimed he was one of my students at UPCFA but I do not remember.
I was thinking of mounting a jazz festival in Tagaytay, and inviting Noli for an evening of hypnosis with strings. But alas, COVID got him.
Sad, too, that COVID claimed Ami Miciano, prime mover of Penguin Café, that magical place that some people label as a bohemian icon, though I do not know what that means.
I was also distraught that Grace Katigbak, painter, poet, and ballet dancer, was claimed by cancer.
She shared a lot of dreams with us and I am glad she and I had a two-man show, with Krip Yuson providing the inspiration.
Farewell also, Felix Fojas. We worked together once, when my company was asked by the COMELEC to present a campaign against election fraud.
He thought of using folktale monsters that won us the nods in the first round, composed mostly of junior officers who probably got captivated by the concept and the visuals of the aswangs, the tiyanaks, and tikblangs to represent the evils in politics.
Felix turned more to his poems when he retired from advertising. He often wrote about the ‘neathworlds and netherworlds.
Perhaps I should have asked him about the felines that aimlessly roam the folds of the universe. And how much souls they have salvaged.
At what point in a fighting life did they demur because the Mighty One commanded “let go”.