Kaban ni D_BystandeR: ANG PAGHANDUM ALANG NI TONY J.

Romy Boy, I used to call up Tining from time to time to inquire into the health conditions of our good friend Tony J.

And so on April 1 I called up Tining and asked if Tony's health conditions improved because I was told by their daughter Jinky that they brought their father Tony to a miraculous frame of Mother of Perpetual Help inside the residence of somebody who lived a few blocks away from Tony's place. But I was  told Tony was already under hospice care and would not eat anymore except a cotton ball dipped into a cup of water and gently touched to his mouth perhaps to allow some watery substance inside. And so I told my wife Tony's condition was critical and if we can go there the earlier the better so we can still catch up with him alive. My wife told me we will be there on April 5 (Saturday) so Amay can go with us because it's her day-off from work. Early in the morning of April 3, before 6am and Amay was about to leave for work, I told her of our plan to wait for her  on Saturday, April 5, so we can visit Tony's place. But upon knowing the critical condition of Tony that I related to her, she told me to go there right away on that day April 3 because Saturday is too far and we might not be able to see Tony alive. And so the four of us, IndayPearl, my son Dongie (John Philip) and daughter Dianne (Joanne) and me started that hour-long memorable trip (via Ogden Avenue because my wife is having a phobia about "high speed" if I take the Expressway of I-55) going to Tony's place in Harlem Avenue and arrived there 1:30pm. Knocking at the door of Tony's house for several "seconds" which would already seem "eternity" to us because Tining would normally not take that long to open the door has caused my wife to say that "maybe something is wrong" why nobody opens the door promptly. And when the door opened, it was not Tining but her 70-year-old younger sister Emma from Texas who let us in. And then and there we knew the story that we were just "a minute late" and not able to see our friend Tony alive because he passed away at 8:50pm the previous night, April 2. We were told Tining was with him in the funeral parlor at Woodlawn attending to the immediate needs necessary for the unexpected situation like that. We could still see the "hospital bed" placed in the living room where Tony was taking rest a day earlier. A few minutes later we heard somebody knocking at the door and came inside the persons assigned to take back the "hospital bed." A few more minutes passed and we talked with Emma about the topic we usually do in cases like that. Emma was not new to us because one time in 2001 or 2003, Tining called us while we were still in the Philippines taking a short vacation, to tell us that Emma, her younger sister, was coming to our house in Pakigne, Minglanilla to bring something for us to handcarry it to them - Tining and Tony. There are times that no matter how interested you are to see a friend, the stakes are too high that you cannot have it much to your dismay. That I wanted to see him (Tony) alive to talk to him for the last time like what I did when I visited him last year, August 3, 2013, in his house where I brought with me my lawyer-son James, who just arrived from the Philippines to visit us on a tourist visa. What is left with me was the memory of our long established friendship while he was still in the Philippines, where at one time I saw him in his full fatigue uniform as an Army Captain when he visited the house of my brother-in-law, Mr. Clemente Daitol. Maybe he was still at the prime of his life, in his mid-forties and very robust-looking and husky. It was coincidental that the wife of Col. Greg Ayo, Mrs. Gloria Ayo, also a neighbor of the Daitol's, passed by and saw Tony talking with me, and greeted him, "Hi! Mr. Lover boy!"

That was a jolly encounter and Tony confided to me that "Glo was his schoolmate" way back in USP (University of Southern Philippines) where he was once the Corps Commander of USP ROTC. At that time he was still assigned to lead a contingent of Army soldiers in Pinamungahan, Cebu. He is a first degree cousin of my bother-in-law, the late Clemente Daitol Sr., the Marketing Manager of William Lines Office before in Cebu City.

 Johnny Love.