Gratitude and remembering

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” – Cesare Pavese

It’s meant to be a solemn week, one of quietude, solitude, gratitude. After Palm Sunday, it’s a countdown to vacation, or an interminable week without sports, when everyone heads out of town to escape, but escape what exactly, nobody seems to know. For those of us who are still learning to sit still, it is a week of remembering and looking ahead, and thanking everyone who added light to our lives.

This month, it will be the first death anniversary of my good friend (and everybody’s good friend) Boyet Sison. Now is as good a time as any to reflect on the gifts that he – and others who gone on ahead – have bestowed upon us. In our profession, life just seems to keep going on, regardless of who is still on the bus with us. There will always be another game to cover, another event to get to, another interview to do, another story to write. This is the perfect time to pause, say a prayer, say thank you; say we’ll do a better job of remembering. Boyet was a master of that. He was thoughtful, humorous, fun-loving, and always concerned about the other person. He was something we needed in the sports community: a wide-eyed fanboy who carried his pure, unadulterated love of life into everything he did. Even his funeral was a party, all three nights of it. At some point in our lives, we each wish we never had to grow up. Boyet lived it, and we all miss him for it. We always remember how someone made us feel, and in Boyet’s case, he always made everyone feel better.

This writer can’t remember Boyet without also remembering Butch Maniego, my mental fencing partner. We were polar opposites, bound together by our love for sport. I was tall (and once lean) and played basketball, Butch was pudgy and a master at scrabble and other board games. We traded verbal jabs and teased each other, but it was all in the spirit of fun, never with any malice. From the time I met him in the late 1980’s until his death in 2012, he was our human calculator, our numbers cruncher. Most of us would say someone shot eight out of 15; Butch would say 53 percent. He was contrarian in his thinking, but never without good humor. He prided himself on his mastery of trivia, or as he would say, being a repository of useless information. No long trips were ever boring. And despite a decade and a half of health struggles, he always, always had the strength to endure the physical demands of travel and work. And as his body betrayed him, his brain remained unendingly razor-sharp.

Of course, I worked with Butch the same time that I worked with the irrepressible Romy Kintanar. Romy, once a national master in chess and a matinee idol in the south, was the quintessential courtside reporter: humorous, warm, non-threatening. He wore his toupee and white leather shoes with everything. He got to do the things we all wished we could do, with the people we idolized. Joe Cantada feigned jealously because, while he was up in the broadcast booth, Romy K got to kiss all the beauty queens, got to chat with all the movie stars, and got sprayed with all the victory champagne. Having come from a stoic news background, I was shocked with how boisterous he was when we first covered a boxing card together. “This is boxing, not love-making, baby!” he yelled. He and Butch would battle for the record for Saisaki’s all you can eat tempura. We’re not walking 20 or 30 pieces here. We’re talking 47, maybe 52 batter-coated shrimp. Talk about living dangerously.

And of course, I could never forget the magnificent, magnanimous Smokin’ Joe Cantada. An accomplished record-holding weightlifter, bodybuilder, and boxer, Joe was born in the throes of the bombing of Manila during World War II. He was more macho than Erap Estrada in a movie, recorded a hit album, announced events like the Tour of Luzon live on the radio. And he was the ring announcer for the Thrilla in Manila. All this even before he became the preeminent voice of the PBA and every major boxing show in the country. Joe never gave material gifts, but he was endlessly generous with himself. He would make it a point to go to the PBA games – even when he wasn’t on duty – to kiss whoever among us was celebrating their birthday, on-camera. I thought I could escape, since there were no games on my birthday in the first week of January. Well, Joe wisely ambushed me in the middle of December, bellowing “You thought you could get away from me, huh!” before planting a big sloppy one on my cheek. These are the moments that make a life.

Have a blessed Holy Week.