Who remembers Rizal’s mi ultimo adios?

I did not know what Thursday morning (last Thursday, I mean) had in store for me. My old man’s practice woke me up at my usual wake up time of 4 o’clock dawn like there was an alarm clock’s piercing sound rousing me from sleep. Quite unusually, I felt a seemingly inexplicable surge of vigor. In ordinary times, I would simply call it as God’s blessing of a new day. For sure, it was not an inertia that sprang because the day before I was fully rested. Considering that I am not superstitious, I did not give that fresh energy any meaning or special attention.

Mid morning that June 18, I attended the regular meeting of the Kapihan sa Sugbo (KSS). This is a group of media practitioners hosting diverse commentary and public affairs radio and television programs. I came with an unusual enthusiasm as I expected to hear Dr. Warfe Engracia, a giant figure of the Knights of Rizal, speak on the life and works of Dr. Jose Protacio Mercado Rizal Alonzo y Realonda. As previously announced by KSS founders Ritchie Wagas, a former mayor of Compostela town, and Cebu City Councilor Pastor Alcover Jr., Dr. Engracio was invited firstly to share the activities of the Knights of Rizal the following day, June 19, being the birthday of our national hero. The KSS members earlier agreed to share with their respective audiences what Dr. Engracia was to discuss. They hoped that bringing information about the Rizal birthday celebration activities would generate participation.

More importantly, the KSS members were common in their feeling that there should be a serious attempt to relive the life of Dr Rizal. For our nation’s sake. They were one in the hope that a deeper understanding of the life and works of our national hero can somehow forge a new nationalistic direction of the political thoughts of our country’s discordant leaders. It was unfortunate that Dr. Engracia got his schedule mixed up that he failed to come, although he was substituted by Atty. Bryner Diaz, an emerging young Rizalist.

The KSS members were quick to fill the program gap. We thought that there should be a way to remedy the yawning situation. The absence of Dr. Engracia should somehow motivate the KSS members to dig into their bag of resourcefulness and make the time educational and worth remembering. We then decided to listen to the poem of Dr. Rizal entitled “Mi Ultimo Adios”. It was at that point in time that Mr. Wagas, asked me to recite it. I imagined that the early morning surge of vigor had something to do with an extreme effort to recall the poem. It was my father Napoleon, who taught me Rizal’s last farewell. When I was four, maybe five years old, he did not read me bedside stories. Instead, he would recite “Mi Ultimo Adios” and ask me to follow him until I memorized it. But that was about 70 summers ago!

I do remember that each time my father would recite the third stanza of Dr. Rizal’s poem, his tears would well. I did not know why and I failed to ask him for any reason that would make him emotional. If only to touch base with my father’s feelings, here is that part of the poem: Yo muero cuando veo que el cielo se colora?Y al fin anuncia el día trás lóbrego capuz;?Si grana necesitas para teñir tu aurora,?Vierte la sangre mía, derrámala en buen hora?Y dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz.

Much later, I read this translation of the stanza done by Charles Derbyshire:

I die as I see the sky bedeck itself in color

At last to greet the dawn behind the sightless hood;

And if you need the deepest red your dawn to smother

Disgorge my blood, splurge it on this most fitting hour

That by the bloodred sheen of your sun it may be hued,

And I found why my father would cry.

The parting words of Wagas and Alcover on the need to rekindle our collective spirit of nationalism gave meaning to my dawn surge of vigor.