And that’s the way it was...

(Author’s note: I am printing below one of the most heartwarming tributes to Father James B. Reuter S.J., written by â€œTita Cherry” Aquino, radio producer and scriptwriter, one of thousands of so-called “Reuter babies.” It gives you a glimpse on why this extraordinary Jesuit was given a standing ovation by Filipinos during his funeral. An American by birth, Reuter lived in the Philippines for 74 years, saying if he would live his life all over again, he would still choose to do so. He died at age 96 last Dec. 31.)

How do you encapsulate a journey and friendship of many decades into a couple of paragraphs? Impossible! Oops, wrong! One of the main lessons I absorbed from Father Reuter was:  “The difficult you do at once, the impossible takes a little longer.” So, this may take a little longer.

He looked like Paul Newman. His voice sounded like Gene Kelly. He loved Glenn Miller. And he hated Frank Sinatra. Every time he would hear me play Frank Sinatra on the turntable he would say: “Turn that bum off!” Nancy, Sinatra’s wife, was one of the best friends of his sister and he was angry at Frank for leaving Nancy for other women.

I first met Father when I enrolled in his Radio Production summer class for lack of something better to do. I didn’t realize I had enrolled for life. Anyway, allow me to share bits and pieces, trivial thoughts and random memories about this media icon who, through all the years spent in our country, was more Filipino than any of us.

We all know he’s athletic. During that summer course on Radio Production, after class or after recording the plays, we would go on picnics. Once we were invited to Los Baños. Father wanted to swim in the river. The hosts had a banca follow him to make sure he was all right. An hour later, we had finished lunch. He was still missing. Later, the hosts told us the boatmen wanted to knock him out with a paddle just so he would stop. They were tired. Father was not.

Long after most priests, if not all, had stopped wearing their cassocks, replacing them with polo shirts and barongs, Father never went out of the office without wearing his Jesuit habit.  When we went to St. Peter’s Seminary in Kuching to conduct a Media Awareness Seminar, the young Malaysian seminarians stared in awe at Father. They had never seen a priest in a black suit with a stiff white collar and a Fedora hat. That was what he wore whenever he traveled out of the country.

For him, money was not only the root of evil, it was the root of ALL evil. So he gave very little thought about it. Jaime Cardinal Sin wanted him to bring a play to Rome for the beatification of Lorenzo Ruiz. Cardinal Sin was his good friend and anything the Cardinal asked him to do, he did. So he wrote the play, rehearsed and brought a cast and crew of around 40, plus boxes of costumes and props, which included a life-sized crucifix. From the beginning, the budget did not cover the entire cost. But Father didn’t worry about that. At the end of each performance, the youngest members of the cast (nine, 10, 11) would stand at the exit with bowls for any donations. By the time they came home they were able to reimburse those who had volunteered to pay for their tickets. He always had faith that if you did your part, God would provide.

He didn’t always have a car. So he would take the bus to or from out of town. When the EDSA Revolution broke he was up in Baguio giving a retreat. He had to come back to Manila immediately to organize the Federation of Catholic Broadcasters through the single-side-band and the Reuter babies with hand-held radios to make sure that the news got out. He made sure the retreatants would be safe. Then, he took the bus back to Manila.

Once, our media team had gone on ahead to the province where we were conducting one of our Media Seminars. He had to stay behind because he was receiving the Ramon Magsaysay Award. The next day he took a bus. Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi was so impressed that this awardee had taken an ordinary bus to join us, he made it obligatory for all the seminarians to attend. Another time, on our way to Iligan in Mindanao, riding in Bishop Fernando Capalla’s car, we were fired at after we passed a checkpoint. Bishop Capalla told us later they thought Father, who was wearing his cassock, was the rebel priest they were looking for.

He had a photographic memory. He remembered everything he read. I typed his articles for his weekly “At 3:00 A.M.” At first he wrote for the Manila Times, and later The STAR. He always wrote his articles, plays, books, by hand. One day he handed me an article for The STAR to type. While I was doing it, it felt familiar. I did a little research. It was exactly the way he had written it several years before… word for word down to the last comma, dot-dot-dot and period.

When he was writing an article or a play or a book, he would lock himself in the office. This was the one time he couldn’t be disturbed. The articles would just take an hour or so. What amazed me were the plays and the books. The plays would take two or three days. The book he wrote about Father George Willmann, the founder of the Knights of Columbus, took him three days. It was one of his best. He would hand you the manuscripts, hand-written, with no corrections or rewrites. And he was very meticulous. Everything you typed had to be proofread, first by someone in the staff, then by him, before being sent to the printer.

Eventually, he bought his own vehicle and he had a driver. This made him more mobile. But he was impatient. When he got caught in traffic that was at a standstill, he would get out and walk. My brother asked me once what Father was doing walking on the Jones Bridge. He had left the car because they weren’t moving.

***

When he was already confined at Our Lady of Peace in Parañaque and he had retired as executive director of the National Office of Mass Media, when we had closed down Xavier House…he continued…we continued to work. We completed and launched his Mama Mary and Her Children, Book Three. No one ever retired from Father Reuter.

As he got older, his taste buds went back to hamburger, spaghetti and dill pickles. For a while, though, one of his favorites was sashimi — the salmon with the green mustard. So his friends gave him jars of dill pickles when he was already in the hospital, and whenever I went to see him every 10 days or so, I would bring him home-cooked spaghetti, hamburger and salad greens with his favorite Asian dressing that my cook learned to make.

So many lessons learned from Father. Lessons he did not preach to you but which you imbibed.

* “The difficult you do at once, the impossible takes a little longer.” That has become my dictum.

* “You should see the face of God in everyone you meet.” This has taught me to be more kind and less judgmental.

* “You have no permission to get sick.” So even with a blocked nose and a fever you go to work.

He not only brought out the best in you, you discovered you did things you never thought you were capable of doing.

His goal was to reach 104. I asked him once why 104. No real reason except that 104 was the oldest age a friend had reached before passing away. Father always wanted to finish anything he started. So he made sure he did that with his own life. I guess he didn’t want to start a new year. He died Dec. 31, the last day of 2012.

I had a strong urge to go and see him on the 31st of December. I had brought a priest a couple of days before to anoint him, but that day I wanted to see him again. So I went. Because it was my husband who was driving, I didn’t stay. He was already unconscious but Sister Arlinda Pacina, his faithful cardiologist and internist, told me to talk to him. So I did. I said my goodbyes. As I was walking out the door Sister Arlinda said: “Father, Ate Cherry is leaving.” So I said in a loud voice: “Cherry Castro Aquino, over and out!” Ten minutes after I got home, I received the message from Boy that his vital signs were fading and his BP was going down. So Choy (my youngest and a Reuter baby) and I drove back. He didn’t wait for me. I got there five minutes after his last breath. But I didn’t mind. I had said “over and out.” That was an expression we used every now and then with each other.

One day, we were at the top of the stairs. He was going for one of his confinements to the hospital. Out of the blue, he turned to me and said: “Cherry, are you going to leave me?” A bit surprised, I said to him: “Of course not! Till death do us part. Till death do us part, Father.”

And that’s the way it was.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)