Wayward & Fanciful
Ten to one
Once in your life, when you're lucky, the world would bless you with a friend who would understand that you need to ride the demons that drive you, even if it meant riding to inevitable death. Nap Amoyen was such a friend to me. Together, we were a perfect ten – rail thin me and roly-poly Nap. People at school got used to seeing us together. Bing Chan even calls him my boyfriend. Surprisingly, my territorial husband never minded, never complained, never objected. He never so much as whimpered about the time I spent with Nap or the places we went to.
You see, Nap was special. Everyone knew that. My husband, of course, knew that.
In his own inimitable way, Nap was a daredevil junkie burning both ends. Work was his passion and he went at it like there was no tomorrow. He undertook at least three major researches every year while taking on one or two teaching overloads. On top of that, he taught graduate school on Saturdays and sat on several boards for development work and research. He'd crunch numbers and analyze trends, preferably – but not necessarily - on data that he himself had extracted. Raw data worked like magnet on him. He was happiest when he had research data to play with and he would go to the ends of the world to get these if he had to.
It's not so much that he loved to eat as it was about the fact that he loved to eat in someone's company that there would always be a lot of food on the table. Eating was a communal thing for Nap. It seemed like it was his life's work to feed people. We'd stop on the sidewalk to buy packets of peanuts, bags of chicken skin, puto taktak, hopia, bibingka, or bananas, or durian even. These he would bring to his classroom for his students. We'd order take out for the SRO staff. We'd walk and walk to find an outlet that sells the brand of Vitamin C tablets that his nephew Popoy preferred.
Now that Nap is gone, our students and colleagues remind me that I don't have a partner anymore. That is to tell me how sorry they are for my loss. No partner no more. Maybe that means no more lunches exploring various ways to cook pork fat. No more time out to smoke or go for coffee. No more sitting by the sidewalk watching the cars go by. No impromptu hikes to Shanghai to feast on lomi midafternoon. No more dragging each other around and texting Q&A till three in the morning.
And secrets. Nap is taking our secrets to the grave. Is that you laughing, my friend?
Truth is, Nap and I really didn't spend that much time together. And especially when we worked on a project together, we'd just be passing paper to each other through Tanya's desk. We were good together that way - we rarely needed to sit down and work things out. When it came to work, we would be on the same page. But mostly, every day since we got to know each other, we had been going off in different directions, pursuing our respective passions and advocacies. But when we got to the campus, we'd always look for the other on the off-chance that we could eyeball.
When we did find each other, we would be so happy to drop everything for the time it took to grab a smoke, a quick lunch, or a leisurely walk up Ma'm Marli's office. Invariably, I who travel light would have nothing on me. He, on the other hand, would be weighed down with his moneybags. He would never dare put them down where he couldn't watch them.
As friends, Nap and I did not live in each other's pockets. He didn't even read my column unless I sent him a cc on his email. I've never seen his friendster. Yet somehow we were in touch with each other's major concerns.
He'd tell me when his mom was coming or when there was trouble brewing with the board or when there's a hush-hush investigation going on. We'd talk about his latest research project or the next foreign trip he'll be taking. He'd tell me about his freshman sections, or the fact that his senior class will be bringing pork adobo next meeting. He'd remember my children's birthdays, but he never remembered mine. Somehow he knew what my priorities were and the fact that I don't celebrate the day I was born.
Nap was an exemplary pillar of the ADDU. Whatever major undertaking there was at school, you can bet that he would be in on it. Curriculum review, institutional research, or whatever else that needed doing - he would be among those working on it. He was a fixture also at major school affairs. He had the procedures for running security arrangements down to an art in the last few years. And once a year, he would buy a new pair of shoes for the graduation exercises.
While we had them, Nap loved to take care of our students – and never mind if they were enrolled in his class or not. His bark was just that – all bark. It never fooled anyone. His door was always open to any learner who had a question. More than anything else, Nap loved seeing his students off to a better start in life.
I found admirable the competence and compassion that I found in Nap. But what I loved most about him really was his fierce independence. It kept him honest with the kind of honesty that inevitably made him stand up time and again for what he believed in. Nap understood the truth that even in life goodbyes were inevitable and sometimes necessary, but that there was more to life than just goodbyes. One did not have to draw them out so long. And that was how it was with Nap. He understood how goodbyes in life should be. That was why he was a whirlwind who always made it to where he needed to be at any given moment. Boy, he made it look so easy.
In the time I knew him, he showed me how to live every day like tomorrow is not going to happen. When I texted him to feed me lunch last Friday, he left his adoring students to give me nourishment for the day and laughter to last me a lifetime. Did Nap know that was the end? I don't know. Friday was like every other time I spent with Nap. He always made me come away feeling all right with the world.
So even as I held his cold corpse at the morgue hours later that night, even as I gently coaxed his eyelids close while talking to a distraught Ma'm Marli on my phone, I couldn't think of Nap as having gone, defeated finally by that one fell stroke he had been flirting with for some time now. Even as I see him lying deathly still in his coffin, I still can't think of him as nevermore. Death is just another one of our temporary goodbyes.
I got the lesson, Nap. You had to go again. The good thing about this time is that I won't have to haunt your office anymore or text you to death to find you, for I know in all honesty that you will always be with me now.
May the Heavens know your laughter, my friend. I sure could hear it still ringing in my ears.
(Wayward and Fanciful is Gail Ilagan's column for MindaViews, the opinion section of MindaNews. Ilagan teaches Social Justice, Family Sociology, Theories of Socialization and Psychology at the Ateneo de Davao University where she is also the associate editor of Tambara. You may send comments to gail.ilagan@gmail.com. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it "Send at the risk of a reply," she says.)