My sister Glo

It’s time I took off from my usual grim renderings on this space – and yes, smiled? It’s indeed time I turned my back on the harsh realities of our times over which I grow prematurely old. And churlish. Maybe I should now fondly remember, seek entry into the elusive territory that conceals the human tenderness in us all. It is almost 50 days since our sister Gloria, eldest in our family of seven, passed away last September 9. And not a day passes that I do not think of her. I wonder why I have not yet shed tears. I also wonder why her memory is like a rose hedge I walk around on tiptoe. I didn’t feel that way at all when my father and my mother died. On both occasions, I cried copiously. But the grief passed quickly, and life continued. The world bristled back like a locomotive on the go.

Maybe I was young then when my parents died in the 50s and 60s. The world was still at my feet, my life as a journalist still beginning. But when Glo died about 50 days ago at the age of 83 (my sister Gening came next, I was third in the family and then followed Dolores, Pilar, Rosauro, Monico), the roar of life was no longer what it was half a century ago. There was a lot of promise then like a huge rainbow. There were challenges to be met, a life to be lived fully. When sister Glo died, the roar was no longer there. Somehow all around, Manila had grown into a mean monster city of 10 million people, its once sturdy shoulders craggy and limp. Its human face had disappeared.

Yes, that was it. We too in the family had grown old. But all seven of us were still alive and relatively well in health. We saw each other more frequently now, the hold of the past getting stronger by the day. Perhaps our fond memories held us together, because they were those of a pristine age when one could still remember these lines: "It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea that a maiden lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee." How many Annabel Lees do we oldsters remember?

This was when the Pasig river was still clear as crystal. Manila Bay with its long, curving beach fronting the most beautiful sunset in the world was the Philippines' Riviera. Then thousands of vacationers from all around flocked to Pasay Beach in innocent day-long revelry, lovers supremely happy to hold each other’s hands – furtively. And a stolen kiss in the gathering darkness was a bonus. Oh, the sight of a bikini would have had everybody recoil in horror. Three Hail Marys on the instant were de rigeur and a pious look at God in the sky.

And as we grew up in Pasay, we little realized the role sister Glo would play in our lives.

She was Manang then to all of us, long-limbed and long-tressed, soft-voiced, a typical Paulinian, never commanding or domineering, with my sister Gening reciting and singing French verses learned from school. She understood our very strict, religious and Spanish-bred parents very well and often played a mediating role. I was often whacked in the seat of my pants by Papa. He considered me, I suppose, the black sheep of the family. This was normal in those times of young, strapping bucks being waylaid by Hollywood, the first furtive calls of sex, Mae West and her big boobs, and the soft summoning snarl of Marlene Dietrich slithering like a snake.

But I shall get lost in reverie.

Glo died at about 4 in the morning of September 9. To all of us it came as a shock. She had been so full of life. She joked, she bantered almost all day. Her repertory of risqué jokes, larded with references to economist Peter Drucker and social scientist Thomas Friedman and of course her steep knowledge of what she taught in academe, made her a towering, colorful favorite among her students at the Ateneo Graduate School of Management. Dean was and remains Dr. Alran Bengzon, my colleague when we both served in Cory Aquino’s cabinet. Glo really labored the vineyards of Ateneo.

At one time, the student body voted Glo their favorite professor. She was so proud of that, it was almost emblazoned on her chest like an invisible coat-of-arms. Me at 80! Can you beat that! She often exclaimed.

We sisters and brothers and closest relatives knew Glo was popular, liked very much by her St. Paul barkada all the way from grade school. She too had become something like a mid-echelon icon at PhilAmLife, the insurance firm where she worked for more than two decades. But it was at the Ateneo Graduate School for business where she bloomed into the lovable, protean, carefree human being she was when she died. We didn’t really know that although we suspected it.

Shortly after "Ma’m Glo’s" remains were transferred to Loyola Chapels, her students by the dozens flocked to her coffin by day and by night. As did her fellow Ateneo professors. I conversed with many of them. And they told me how much Glo meant to them as a guru, as a friend, as an adviser. Often, they told me she was "special". Yes, they did tell me about her risqué jokes like this one: "When I was young, I was very proud to be a virgin. Now I am not so proud any more." And yes, she also said she was a DOM for Desirable Old Maid. That always brought out a howl of laughter as was her preoccupation with sexual bromides and asides. And yet on the instant, she would quote from the Competitive Edge by Michael Porter. And the edge had nothing to do with competition in the boudoir.

It was when the Ateneo authorities requested that Glo’s remains be transferred to Ateneo chapel prior to the burial that I realized how much she was esteemed. All the pews were occupied. Others stood. And there was a lovely choir. Everybody bustled about. Dean Bengzon and I talked in rapid flash-backs of course about my sister. I was not prepared for an oldish man in short-sleeved barong who accosted me at the chapel, I asked who he was. He replied he was Fr. Bienvenido F. Nebres. Then and only then did I realize the president of Ateneo de Manila University had come up front to pay his respects. That was something.

Fr. Nebres knew our sister Glo very well. It was he who delivered the eulogy during the mass. I cannot remember many details. But what got me and my sisters and brothers was that rare tapestry of words, as only a Jesuit reverend can put together. Fr. Nebres told the audience what a wonderful person Ma’m Glo was, how she touched their lives, what a special glow she brought to her teaching, how she ignited love and tenderness in her students, how she earned the respect of her fellow professors, how she prowled Ateneo’s corridors with dignity and distinction. And they all loved and admired her for that.

It was rare that they referred to Ma’m Glo as an octogenarian. She was the only octogenarian in the faculty. Or was there somebody else?

She was not really that old in a physical sense for her mind was not only alive but sprightly. She had a six-shooter with humor for bullets. She had an in-your-face lust for life, a joy for almost everything. She was Andre Gide screaming "I love life!" And maybe that’s one reason I have yet to cry or weep. I never saw my sister Glo as a physical and mental decrepit, wasted beyond her years, rocked and semi-paralyzed by strokes as most of her – and even my – colleagues were. Many have long been dead. I would have guffawed and danced a jig if I saw her in a wheel chair.

How does one remember her?

Above her coffin were two blown-up photos of Glo. Smiling, she didn’t look her age. There was about her a glow, an aura, almost impish if you wanted to see her childish impiety, and yet an adult luster, vivacious and spontaneous, as of a female sage seeking to impart a nugget of knowledge. One of her students wrote on the 40th day as she visited Glo at Manila Memorial Parks: "Thank you for the woman that you are, an inspiration and a model — a woman always seeking greater knowledge." Another wrote: "An honor to a woman of dignity and courage. You will be missed." Another still: "She is our significant teacher who taught us who Peter Drucker is, Jack Welch, and Friedman, his Lexus and the Olive Tree."

In my response for the family at the Ateneo chapel, I think I hit it on the barrelhead when I said maybe it was a blessing Manang Glo had not married. Although she must have had a colorful love life the nature of which I didn’t know (the audience tittered). With Papa and Mama having long gone, we needed a mother at the old ancestral residence on Lourdes St., Pasay, and she filled the role superbly. She was a Mother Teresa to those in the extended Benigno family who had lost their way. She was guide, at times mentor, often a lighted lamp during periods of darkness, never really tormented, always poised. And always, that joke jabbed into your ribs with light and sometimes even ribald laughter. She knew all the salesmen jokes.

Even now, almost two months after, Glo is always there, around, somewhere, when I visit the Benigno residence in Pasay. She died sitting up on her bed, but bent down on a pillow that early morning. The pillow was still wet with tears or the juice of her death. Her body was still warm. She reminded me of Invictus as the last shudders of cardiac arrest deserted her body: "Out of the night that covers me black at the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever Gods may be for my unconquerable soul."

Glo did not suffer unduly. She went gently into the night.