Dying is part of life

Recently, there were three totally independent things that happened that truly depressed us. We all know that we all have to die, but what depressed us was the fact that three of our former students died and we could not grasp why they had to go before us. The three students were: Benjamin C. Bernales, Jose M. Buhain and Jesus Q. Cruz. All of them were involved in writing.

Benjamin C. Bernales was my student at the Far Eastern University and he taught sociology, economics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, theology, journalism, political science, history and mathematics in different colleges and universities. He was once a deskman for the United Press International and was the Philippine STAR opinion editor when he succumbed to liver cancer a age 72. He once published this tribute to his ex-professor:

ARR: Of jokes and cocks

As an ace raconteur, this witty writer

Numberless jokes cracks, making his listener

Double up without fail in hearty laughter.

Ingenious looks the matchless deadpan manner

Never smiling till after punchline-utter.

Genius ‘tis to view humor in life’s theater.

Re critique on oeuvres: "Deceptively simple".

Roosters strut majestically in mindset

On high pedestal perch for fine-feathered pet.

Cockfights like gladiators in to-death combat

Egg him with elan to pen conte after conte

Serving up countless readers delightful treat.

The second student was Jose M. Buhain whom I appointed as editor of the FEU school paper Advocate. After graduating, he turned William Dutler Yeat’s Calvary into a street play in Filipino and a New Yorker was invited to direct the first such play to be presented in the country. For no less than a decade, Kalbaryo was a Lenten presentation in the streets of Manila.

The third to die was Jesus Q. Cruz who was an Art and Culture columnist for the Philippine STAR. Cruz was a US Fullbright-Hayes scholar and was asked to teach Humanities at the University of the Philippines by the late National Artist Francisco Arcellana. He was a two-time Carlos Palanca Memorial Award winner and later became one of its judges.

We are very sad about the demise of these three outstanding students that I had and can’t help wondering why they had to go before their former professor.

I remained close to my students in the FEU. To this day, we regularly meet in the Casino Español for lunch to discuss now we all are faring with the times. What bothers me is that I am now in my eighties and really can’t understand why my former students have to go to the next world ahead of me.

Death is what life teaches all at the proper time. Or as William Hazlitt said, "We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have moldered away gradually long before. Death only consigns the last fragment of what we are to the grave."

To Ben Bernales, Joe Buhain and Jess Cruz, we say: It is just a matter of time before I join you – not soon I hope.