Friends

It’s been 50 years since we walked out of the Gates of Opportunity at Silliman University in Dumaguete City to the world outside. During those years in half a century, my best college friend and I exchanged notes, first through letters, and Christmas logs, then by email — not frequently, only when the spirit moved us, or some necessary things had to be told (like she was visiting her mother in Bais, some kilometers away from Dumaguete, or I was visiting her in Boston, so we should meet up). Though the letters were few and far between, and we were apart several thousands of miles, our friendship remained, strong and steadfast, here to stay till the end of time.

Recently, my friend Priscilla Lasmarias-Kelso had been in Dumaguete for six months, but would be leaving with her husband Bart for Newtonville, Mass. so we arranged for our only meeting to take place last week in my garden in Cavite. We hugged and exchanged tokens and introduced our husbands, and it was endless joy listening to Pris talk about many things, about family and tulips springing up in Spring in her yard — it was, as always, as if she was singing odes, and she loved every English word she spoke.

We were classmates at Silliman, graduating in 1961, she as magna cum laude and editor of Sillimanian, the campus paper. She received a scholarship grant to Stanford University where she obtained her master’s degree, major in English and American literature. She became a director for international programs at the University of Pennsylvania and Northeastern University, and guided the international outreach of the Boston Graduate and Faculty Ministry. She married Bart Kelso, a handsome Presbyterian minister and environmentalist. During the past six months, Pris served as a volunteer visiting professor at Silliman’s English and Literature department, and Bart managed a program for foreign students at Silliman’s Divinity College. Waiting for them in Boston is their daughter Rachel, a beautiful managing editor of The American Irish Fund Connect magazine.

 At our Cavite lunch too, was another dear friend, Roselyn Grino-Delloso, a nurse-turned successful entrepreneur, from whose kind hands came rescuing pesos in my time of need, a trench coat for a trip to cold Beijing, a bag of peanuts from her kitchen.

So many friends have lifted my spirit when in doldrums — Lydia, Colet, Gina who lives in Cambridge and writes notes praising me to high heavens, whom I shall remember for introducing me to Kahlil Gibran, whose line I paraphrase, “You don’t go looking for love; love, when it finds you worthy, will find you anywhere.” So many times, Lyn the tourist guide took me on journeys to forgiving not only others but also myself. Flory always spreads out feasts when I drop in at her home. I consider Letty, Deedee and Flor as my best friends in media.

It’s not a waste that they’ve passed on to heed the call of the Supreme Being, but the memory of their warmth still touches my being, and I cannot suppress a cry when I remember them: Betty, Odette, Nelly, Eliza. Why did you have to go, I find myself whimpering, you, who have been the wind beneath my wings.

Men and women in history have written about friendships — of the filial and agape kinds. Aristotle was one of them. Don Marquis wrote: “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” Another said, “Friendship is something that creates equality and mutuality, not a reward for finding equality of a way of intensifying existing mutuality.” Still another mused, “In the spiritual life nowhere do our ideals meet the actual more holy than in how we can relate to each other, in how we make, sustain our friends.”

Husbands and wives are not necessarily friends, and they should, they being intimately bundled. But they who are good friends, are often without meaning to be so public about it, seen holding hands, laughing merrily, blowing kisses across the room. They’re close in hell or high water, in good and bad times, in sickness and in health.

Friendship is remembrances of good things and associations — the smell of bread baking inside the oven, the fragrance of champaca, sampaguita and ilang-ilang, a lullaby, the hug of your grandchild, the murmur of a brook, the sun breaking out of days – old clouds, the ring of a long-awaited phone call, Beethoven’s 5th symphony, the pretty bloom of a hibiscus in the garden.

Friends are always there for us — in happy and sad times. We share our joys and sorrows. We run to each other for sympathy, for a shoulder to cry on, for listening to our stories of disappointments, a failed marriage, and pecuniary troubles. They do not degrade us or discourage us, but make us expand our horizons.

To my dear Priscilla, thank you for your friendship.

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The Inang Naulila sa Anak (INA) Foundation, has issued a statement in defense of Dr. Lourdes Carandang who has been maligned for her statement on the Jan-Jan dancing video. The statement is as follows:

 “We, the members of the Inang Naulila sa Anak (INA) Foundation respect that people from opposing sides are free to speak out and defend their respective stands on the issue. However, the Jan-Jan story has evolved not only as a heated debate over child abuse, it also put into question the credibility of Dr. Lourdes Carandang who expressed an independent and informed opinion on the incident.

“The INA Foundation supports and commends Dr. Carandang in giving attention to the case of Jan-Jan. She is a most respected psychologist and a crusader for the rights of women and children. In the many years that she has volunteered in helping us heal and cope with our pain, we have known her to be most sympathetic and generous with her already limited, precious time. Her vast experience in the assessment and treatment of abused women and children, especially among the poorest members of society, include horror stories that are too painful to discuss. Still, she marches on, believing that everyone – rich or poor, deserves a fair chance at getting able, professional help.

“It is unfortunate that recent attacks on her have become vicious and personal, for after all, all she did was express her honest assessment of the incident as a professional.

 “It is tragic that some of us have lost faith in people, however, we stand firm in the thought that there are still people who lend their time and talent for no pecuniary consideration, in pursuit of their advocacies. Dr. Carandang is one such person.

“As mothers, our foremost duty is to uphold the best interest and the dignity of a child. In this light, we pray that the end result of the investigation being conducted by the Movie and Television Review & Classification Board will put this painful controversy to rest for the utmost benefit of the viewing public, specially the children.”

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My e-mail:[email protected]