For a life lost
September 16, 2005 | 12:00am
It was Sept. 11, 2001, 8 a.m., when Marie Rose Abad called her husband from her 89th floor office. Rudy was on his treadmill. "Don’t worry," she said. "I’m okay." He asked why she was reassuring him. "Turn on the TV," she answered. New York’s World Trade Center was the focus of every news channel. The towers still pierced through the sky, but Tower One had a gaping hole midway up the structure. "We heard this huge explosion, and saw smoke and papers rising in the air, but that’s all we know," she told Rudy. "It looks like a plane crashed into the tower," he said. Then Rudy told her not to worry. The danger was in the other building. Even the people who were evacuating Tower Two were asked to return by the building’s supervisors, as Tower Two was in no danger. At 8:20 a.m., Rudy called Marie, and told her that a plane had collided against a corner of Tower Two. "You better get out of there," he said 20 minutes later, she called him. They were waiting for the fire marshals to move them to another floor. At 9:15 a.m., she called again. "It’s getting too smoky, this might be my last call." "Ru," she said, "Pray, please pray."
It was his first time to step on American ground. The freeways, the huge buildings, just the sheer vastness of the place had him bug-eyed with awe. It lasted until reality stepped in.
He had to take a job waiting tables at the Golf and Country Club. Although his parents paid for his education, he decided to shoulder the rest of the financial burden. He had four other siblings who were in school, and his decision to go the US after all was not his parents’ decision.
"It was a very humbling experience compared to where I was coming from to what I know now."
The second job he took as a clerk for Merrill Lynch launched the 23-year career that concluded with the position of senior vice president. Merrill Lynch was also where he met Marie Rose, a lovely Italian-American taking a three-month training program for recently-graduated high school students. Marie was 18; Rudy was 24 and her supervisor. For those months he "admired and loved her from afar." On her last day, he asked her out on a date." She accepted, but made sure he knew she saw him as a friend. For the next two years they spoke on the phone every night for two to three hours at a time.
It was after those two years that Rudy decided to see someone else. His girlfriend became so frustrated with hearing about the perfect Marie that she presented Rudy with an ultimatum – her or Marie. Rudy asked Marie if there was still a chance she could love him, and got the same answer as always. "I think of you as a friend."
Rudy said goodbye to his dream girl, and ended the two-year spate of conversations about college life, Marx and every other thing under the sun. A week later, Rudy got a phone call from his future wife.
"I don’t know what I feel," Marie said. "But I know it’s more than friendship."
On Nov. 17, 1974, while on the 110th floor of the World Trade Center, Rudy asked Marie to marry him. Rudy calls their years together a "Cinderella Marriage."
"Everyday I loved her more. I told her that – and meant it too. I kissed her 50 times a day to prove it. And that’s with her away eight hours every day at work!"
He had no way of knowing. After 48 hours, he still prayed and hoped.
"You keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, a miracle can happen." It was when two weeks passed that he stopped believing.
Two years later, he came across an old classmate, Mike Goco, who worked for Gawad Kalinga. Rudy said he was looking for something meaningful to do. Mike talked about building communities and giving away houses to the deserving. Then he directed Rudy to the website.
It got Rudy’s attention. When he asked Mike again what meaningful meant in Gawad Kalinga, Mike said that a house was worth $1,000. Rudy wanted to do something more.
It costs $50,000 to build a village. "If you donate a village, Mike said, "we’ll put it in your name."
"Can it be named in memory of my wife?" Rudy asked.
It was then that he found what he was looking for.
Years ago, when Rudy and Marie were jogging in Antipolo on a visit to the Philippines, several children followed them trying to sell sweepstakes tickets. Please ma’am, they kept asking Marie. Please ma’am.
"It broke our hearts," Rudy said, "especially Marie’s, because we didn’t have money with us then." The next day Marie went to the bank and had her dollars converted to one-peso coins. She went back and started giving away the coins to all the children who asked.
"Someday," Marie said, "I’d like to go back and help the children. I don’t know when or how, but someday, I’d like to help."
"The world has to know about GK. It’s not a housing project. It’s about your men doing something to help their fellow men and not just talking. GK is the hope of this county," Rudy says.
"I’m not done yet. I hope never to be done with GK – anytime they need me, they have me. When I run out of money, they’ll have my time and my energy."
Terminator-fashion, he quips: "I’ll be back."
He says the tears come quickly when he goes to Baseco. They are tears of joy in knowing he has done something to change people’s lives. He could have given a $1,000 anywhere, but with GK, it gave a family a roof to keep away the rain and a space to sleep.
For one life that is lost, many are saved.
For more inquiries, e-mail the author at pat.evangelista@gmail.com.
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