The last words

The sudden demise of Secretary Cerge Remonde reminded me of just how important it is to consider what I refer to as “ the last words”.

Without a doubt many friends of Cerge Remonde will be shocked to realize that he was only 51 and they will all be saying that he died so young. Unfortunately many of us intentionally or unknowingly take death for granted.

We live on the presumption of having a long life or dying old. But death can come before we are born or at any time thereafter. Another thing we take for granted are “the last words”, or what we say to someone at our last meeting or last conversation.

A number of occasions have progressively taught me to consider what we say to someone or do with someone because it may be the last we ever say or do something with that person.

This year I have decided to make a special effort to spend time with loved ones on short trips or vacations whenever they ask or when the opportunity presents itself. That decision goes back to a conversation I had with my father Louie Beltran in 1994.

Our conversation, which took place on a Thursday morning, was about the weekend wedding in Hong Kong of Charlie Cojuangco and Rio Diaz. Dad offered to pay for my ticket so I could attend the couple’s wedding since they were also my friends. Lacking in wisdom, I declined Dad’s invitation because I was concerned about my dad spending over P20,000 just for me to attend a wedding.

I failed to appreciate that my Dad was blessing me with a gift. I did not realize that I was also denying him the chance to do something he wanted to do for me. I also failed to consider that it was a privilege to travel under such circumstance. But all that paled compared to the ultimate consequence.

 Little did I realize that our brief conversation would be the last!

I missed the chance to go on one last trip with him. I did not get to see him sing at the wedding banquet, I did not get to go on one last shopping spree. I most definitely did not have a dramatic dialogue with him that would have been a fitting “Last Words”.

I worried about the price but did not consider the cost.

The next time I got a “wake up” involved a very young military officer who also died at age 51. Although I admired the guy he often made remarks that seemed insensitive or callous about soldier life. On one occasion, I really got on his case when he stated that becoming an invalid was part of a soldier’s life. For a while, we were not friendly to each other.

Eventually, we managed to clear the air and I started to give him air-time whenever he had military matters to discuss or to inform the public. On one occasion our talk was even animated and one would never have guessed that, once upon a time I was considered “unfriendly”. Not long after that nice talk on radio, the military officer died of aneurism.

As we mourned his untimely death, I took comfort in the thought that my “last words” with him were kind and said with friendship.

In many ways, I could say the same about my “love-hate” relationship with Cerge Remonde. I confess that for the longest time I was publicly critical of Cerge Remonde not because of his political loyalties but more of my frustration about how he performed as an officer of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas or KBP.

On several occasions, I actually got in his face to tell him how I felt and we would ultimately spar with seething civility. But sometime last year at a party hosted by Go-Negosyo Guru Joey Concepcion, Cerge and I had a chance to talk and discovered we had a number of similarities, the most striking of which was that we both had a “foreigner” for a wife.

Any Pinoy married to a foreigner, particularly to a western woman, will tell you that it is a unique situation to be in and the experience is enough material to base a fraternity on. Of course the more obvious similarity was that we both came from the broadcast industry and media in general.

Although we did not cement a life long friendship that night, we seemed to agree that we could continue to be in touch and perhaps let our wives get to meet each other and laugh at us behind our backs.

Last year, when the Presidential party was under attack for their dining decisions in Washington and New York, I chose to keep the middle ground and did my best to be balanced. In return I received a text of gratitude from Cerge Remonde. We exchanged a few SMS as well as agreed to meet up for dinner with our wives.

Because of storm Ondoy we never managed to have dinner. Thank God, I at least have a story about the kind of “last words” that Cerge Remonde and I shared. By God’s grace our “last words” to each other were words of respect, gratitude and a promise of friendship.

I realize that many of us can’t spend half the time thinking what our “last words” should be for every person we come in contact with. Some might even ask: Does it really matter?

Well just ask all those people who never had a chance to say goodbye, never had a chance to say sorry or never had the courage to say “I Love You”.

Isn’t it tragic how people will go out of their way just to have the last word in an argument, but never really put much thought about what their “last words” will be. Remember Michael Jackson’s last words: This is it!

And it was.