Rainy-day memories in the middle of summer

The sudden downpour the other night was a welcome respite in the middle of the searing summer. Outside my window, gusty wind blew its might and became the music that propelled our chico and mango trees to dance. Their leaves were drenched yet they glistened in the dark due to the illumination of the lollipop-like lampposts by the roadside.

Inside my room, beautiful memories of rainy days kept me company. It was raining outside but there was warmth inside me as I wrote a letter to my college best friend Joyce Mercado-Gomez.

Sometime in June 1989, almost 19 long years ago, something very wonderful happened to my life. And it all started with a smile.

Of all the venues, this beautiful thing happened while I was riding a jeepney one rainy day inside the UPLB campus. All I knew and remembered was, except for the driver, I was sharing the ride with a total lady stranger. She was in shorts and her presence in that turtle-paced ride was a sight to behold. Her skin was creamy; her eyes, expressive. But I could not give her the liberty of staring at her and compliment her beautiful features.  I haughtily kept my chin high to pronounce my theatrical disinterest in her. At the back of my mind I was thinking: “I am a goddess. I shouldn’t waste time minding mortals.”

The ride continued with still the two of us occupying the whole passenger jeep. I kept my eyebrows arched, trying to intimidate the girl who was, I sighed, unaffected. Suddenly her eyes and mine met. Like butter under the sun, the taray in me melted away as our eyes locked.  Instead of snubbing each other, she and I both beamed an inviting smile. Instantaneous combustion ensued as she and I shared a good hearty laugh for no reason at all. The rest, as they say, was history.

This is the story of how Joyce and I met.  This started the beautiful saga of our friendship — the time when all we had to do was to dream. We were very young then.  But I guess it is the youth in us — free-spirited and carefree — that made us click. She is one of the beautiful things that happened to me.

Since her boarding house was very close to my dormitory, we managed to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together. In fact, she even shared with me her meal stubs many times. Each meal was not complete without sharing a laugh. When you’re younger, you tend to laugh a lot. But that should always be the case, even if one is old and gray.

Barely a year after that memorable jeepney ride, Joyce figured in a freak car accident. She survived but her face was severely disfigured. She lost her nose, even her left eye. All these happened when she was about to be launched as the next commercial model of popular brands of shampoo and bath soap.

The acceptance took a while but it did not really take a toll on her disposition in life. The trauma she had was debilitating but she fought back. At the Makati Medical Center where she was confined for almost two months, she waged a battle. I would hold her hand every time she would be wheeled into the operating room for her reconstructive surgery. I would be one of the few faces she would see at the recovery room when she became conscious after every operation. I would be there by her side gingerly taking away with cotton buds the remnants of ointment used in her affected eye.  It was a battle well fought with her family and me by her bedside all the time. She won the battle; went back to school. Had it not been for her many “excused absences,” she could have graduated cum laude. But never mind the awards. In the university of life, she definitely bagged the highest honors by simply having the courage to fight the many challenges thrown her way.  

The wounds of the past have totally healed. Joyce now lives happily with her own family in the States. She busies herself as the executive director of the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She has been inviting me to visit her in California. I’m sure it will materialize one day. Meanwhile — with our favorite rainy-day weather as my link to her­ — let me just content myself in reminiscing the beautiful friendship we continue to share to this day.

I wish for rainy days to begin so we could be together again — even if only in my thoughts and my dreams.

(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com or my.new.beginnings@gmail.com. One day, I’ll tell you about the beautiful and lasting friendship I forged with my ‘Nanay’ Jei Capiral when we were in college.

Have a blessed Sunday!)