Goodbye, Jerry

How old was I then? Fourteen? We still lived in my grandmother’s big house in Old Sta. Mesa. One day Mommy received a phone call. One of my aunts told her my father’s oldest brother, Ardalion or Tito Ardy, had passed away. He had a heart attack. We went to their house somewhere around Santolan. There I met my aunt and cousins for the first time. I met Jerry and three other brothers and sisters whose names I don’t remember, though I remember Jerry’s name well. Even his face I remember. He was not too tall, just about as tall as I was, and he looked somewhat like my father.

We saw each other a few times more in the typical family rituals after a death — at the burial, at the ninth day of prayers. We talked on the phone also a few times more. Soon after, they moved to Agusan del Sur. We did not see each other again.

Fast forward 50 years. We are in our 60s. Some of us in our generation have died. Finally our branch of the Gonzalez family is having its first reunion. My cousin Pat Gonzalez Pacana Modesto wonders if I might get in touch with Jerry. Do I know where he is?

I stop to think. About 10 years ago I was visiting Bacolod City when my friends talked about a Vladimir Gonzalez. Who? I asked, warily alert. What if they were talking about my father? What if he were amnesiac but alive?

“How old is he?” I asked the lady who mentioned his name.

“I would say in his 20s,” she said.

My heart sort of stopped. What if he was my father’s junior? What if he was my half-brother? Then suddenly I had a thought — what if he was Jerry’s son named after my father? But 40 years had passed since I last saw and talked to Jerry and I did not know how to find him now.

Wait, maybe I can call my friend in Bacolod and he can find Vlady and get his father’s phone number from him. Then I would know if he was Jerry’s son and Six Degrees of Separation, right? That’s the play that says that if you want to get in touch with someone, you will make it through six people or fewer.

So I texted my friend and asked him to help me locate the telephone number of my cousin, Jerry Gonzalez, the father of Vladimir Gonzalez who lived in Bacolod. Is he the husband of. . .? I did not know. If she is the mother of Vladimir, then maybe, I said, suddenly not sure if Vladimir was Jerry’s son.

By the next morning I had Jerry’s number. I called him, identified myself as his first cousin Tweetums, asked if he remembered me. He did and sounded exuberant. I invited him to come over to the reunion. He said he could not but would send his son Vladimir instead. We called each other and talked back and forth a few times, catching up on each other’s lives, he telling me about his brothers and sisters. We made friends again.

He told me he would send Vlady over but at the last minute Vlady couldn’t make it either. So we said we would meet at the next family reunion, this year, more or less on October 18, the wedding anniversary of our lolo and lola.

The other night I received a text from Vlady. “My dad, Jerry Gonzalez, passed away last night.” I was so disturbed that I texted right back to ask what happened. He called, told me his dad had been sick for a while now, was not getting better. He said that’s why he could not come to the reunion, he was too sick to fly. He had to move Jerry from Agusan to Bacolod so he could look after him. He said his dad wanted to go to the reunion this year but really he had not been well.  Then last night, he died.

The news saddened me. I remembered first the moments of closeness, then the moments of separateness, then the way he sounded when I called him two years ago trying to persuade him to come. It was sad that we had not seen each other again. Jerry and I are the same age.

The next day I sent text to my cousin Pat and passed on the news. Then I passed on Vladimir’s cell phone number and asked her to pass it on to Ninna Gonzalez Agoncillo as well so at least a few of his cousins called to commiserate with the family and to say goodbye.

So, goodbye, Jerome Deen Gonzalez, beloved first cousin whom I haven’t seen in 50 years, whose image remains young and fresh in my mind. We were only 14 when we first — and last — saw each other. We will see each other again perhaps sooner than later. Be happy.  You are very well now.

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