Remembering Lorna

She was something of a legend, something you won’t forget, but always remember. She was a character. A friend. A lover of life. A survivor – of life’s vicissitudes like many of us reading this column. Her name: Lorna Revilla Montilla. Now she’s gone, having succumbed to a terrible bout with asthma and the bad things that go with it.

Death comes suddenly to many. Lorna had had many of those exhausting asthmatic spells, but no one suspected she’d go, for it seemed she would outlive any of us. But she put one over on us; and the vision we have of her traipsing to heaven is likely to be the same – she would be wearing an intricately woven malong, with her trinkets and beads and anklets, and she would be laughing and carrying the manuscript of an unfinished sexy novel and a painting of erotic dancers. Such would be the picture etched in many of us left behind to mourn her passing away but envy her for her having gone ahead to meet her Creator.

I was a cub reporter for a daily in Manila, an innocent, lanky girl ready to be shocked about anything, when I first met Lorna and experienced my first culture shock. She seemed to me the epitome of worldliness; she was sexy, wearing tight-fitting jeans, her hair cropped short, and her laughter roaring through the newsroom as she talked about her anthropological enterprise, of jars and vases dug up in some untrodden caves. As our friendship bloomed, I found myself often in her apartment, eating a dish of beans and shrimp and adobo cooked the Antique way (chicken with lots of garlic and fried crisp). She had converted her garage into a painting gallery aptly called "Lorna’s Garage." There the works of well-known painters were displayed and sold, from those of Manansala and Malantik to Ocampo, Legaspi and Malang and Ang Kiok Kok and budding artists. The renowned sculptor Ed Castrillo remembers the cocktail parties and lunches at her place that gathered such now-big shots as Ramon Orlina and Manny Baldermor Ed remembers Lorna getting bohemian artists together until the wee hours of morning at Indios Bravos, a tiny bar in Ermita where she would whip up dishes of omelette and fried rice that tasted like they were made for kings.

Lorna was like many of us writers, struggling most of the time to make both ends meet, yet throwing money away (when it came) as if it came from a bottomless barrel. She loved to entertain, for one thing. She would send a Ming jar or a centuries-old vase to a friend, saying she wanted to give them to the recipient, actually, but, well, she also had to pay her electric and water bills.

We remember her warmth and light-spiritedness. Letty Magsanoc found her "very funny… And she never talked about anybody. I loved her laughter." And she loved the baki (a native delicacy of ground young corn wrapped in its husk and boiled) because it was cooked the way Letty’s grandmother made it. Lorna, Letty reflects, "was an original character. She was knowledgeable about art and artists and artists’ wives."

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Not too long ago Deedee and Sonny Siytangco received a painting from Lorna. The dedication read, "to my friend and admirer (meaning Deedee) and my sweetheart (meaning Sonny, for that was how they called each other)." It was a painting of Taal lake, as seen from the Siytangcos’ house in Tagaytay. "This is to remind you of our first meeting – but Tagaytay is no longer as we knew it before. "Lorna and the couple met for the first time in Tagaytay, when Taal volcano erupted. The couple was then working with Operation Brotherhood, and Lorna was a good friend of OB founder and head Oscar Arellano. Lorna, recalls Sonny, was "a fun person, but who was very sensitive to other people’s feelings. She was the ‘grand dame’. No matter how bad things were going, she was always nice and warm. We did not meet very often, but when we did, we picked up from where we left off, she was so naturally warm, she was that type of person."

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Lorna was born and grew up in a small town in Antique. Before she died, Gov. Sally Zaldivar Perez appointed her cultural adviser. Lorna had practically organized what had become a yearly "Binarayan" celebration. She brought many artists to her town. There by the seashore she built a native house and it was filled with friends from Manila most of the time. Lorna was living there for sometime, but came to Manila in March for an art exhibit by women, which featured an erotic painting by her. Years ago she had written the manuscript of an erotic autobiographical novel and which needs a publisher yet, and a couple of years ago, she began painting.

She is survived by two sons who are living in the US.

At her wake artists, journalists, and friends from others persuations come gently streaming in, with eye unbelieving hearts unfolding. Among those I found were Nelly Sindayan, Ed Castrillo, Mila Alora, Monica Feria, photographer Mandy Navasero, former Ambassador Ike Zaldivar, Nora Zaldivar and Chuchi de Vega. Journalist-culinary artist Sol Vanzi prepared a feast that was "so much like Lorna," somebody said – fresh sweep grapes, canapes, sandwiches of tuna and veal. It would have been complete bacchanalia had the guards at the entrance allowed Mandy to bring in bottles of wine.