I seldom check my emails nowadays because of my many other commitments. Last July 1, 2008, I had already checked my Yahoo! Mail but when I went back to the site a few minutes later, I found that I had received a new message from my brother Noel and that it was about Hilda. My brother was the classmate of Hilda’s younger sister Owie. My older sister Lyn was also the classmate of Hilda’s elder sister Anna. My brother knows that Hilda and I were the best of friends in high school.
I quickly scrolled down the list of forwarded messages until I reached the email that Owie had written to their classmate. It confirmed my worst fear: Hilda was hit by a vehicle while she was in Tagaytay; she had been comatose for two days after which the doctors declared her to be brain dead; her parents had already decided to take her out of life support.
I did not quite know how to react to this news. How could this have happened to Hilda who was my dear friend? Yet I was still on my way to my first class on that day so I had to push aside my own thoughts for the moment. When I arrived home, my father told me that he had already learned about what had happened to Hilda. He also advised me that I might be asked to speak in her eulogy. That was when I broke down and cried as I tried to recall how we spent high school life together, that she was gone, and that I missed her.
How long has it really been? We graduated from high school twenty-four years ago in 1984. We became the best friends in high school but we knew each other since grade school. Thus, we have been friends for more than twenty-four years. Maybe it’s more around thirty years. It’s practically a whole lifetime. When we became close in high school, Hilda told me that she never thought that we would become the best of friends. She would joke that I was too pesky--always running after her to step on her clean shoes and socks. She would pretend to get angry but she would invariably break into a big smile and give me a big hug saying, “Juris, I love you. You’re my best friend and also my best pest.”
Our big secret at that time was the identity of her crush. I don’t think that I ever got to tell anyone who “Chocolate” was because whenever I tried to raise the topic during our not-too-frequent batch reunions she would always raise her eyebrows alarmingly. We would keep track of the latest news about him even after our graduation—of where he was and of what he was doing. I don’t think that I can tell anyone about her secrets now either. I was quite strictly trained by Hilda in that respect. I know that she would not approve of it.
Hilda was sweet and affectionate, gentle, lively, vibrant, generous, sentimental, and demonstrative. She asked her mother if she could have extra spaghetti and brownies which are her favorite food to share with me at lunch time. She brought to school the flowers that she explained had fallen from her grandmother’s orchids and taught me to dry and press them in old newspapers to preserve them.
Even if Hilda and I were in different sections we always did our home economics projects together. She would wait for me in one of the benches outside our classrooms during lunch and other break times. She liked to crochet and do other needlework and I, too, was encouraged by her quiet industriousness. We also did homeroom assignments together as Hilda was artistic and loved to draw and paint.
We played pacman in their house whenever I was there. She also invited me to lunch with her family which includes her lolo and lola. I noticed that they all ate together at the same table and that they were very close as a family. I also visited her in her house when she got sick with chicken pox or measles.
She brought to school the birthday cards that she got from her sisters. I was amused. Once they gave her a picture of a hunk because they said that that is what she wished for. Another card told her that inside was a round piece of supposedly magical silver foil that she could look into and see herself as anything that she wanted or can imagine herself to be. She was already working in New York Life when she would email me other hilariously obscene pictures. I thought that my friend was developing quite an adult sense of humor.
She was quite frank and honest, too, which helped me keep my feet on the ground. Once I asked her, “Hilda, do you think I have good diction? Can I read to you?” She replied, “Okay.” After I had finished reading I asked her if I sounded good already. Her reply was, “It all just sounded like ‘swish-swash’ to me.” I asked again, “Are you sure?” and she replies without any change in her expression, so I wasn’t really sure if she was telling the truth or just teasing me, “Yeah.” On another instance I asked her, “Hilda, do you think I’m pretty?” When she did not reply, I persisted. I said, “Because my relatives told me that I’m pretty.” She replied, “You have kind relatives.”
Sometimes when she can contain her amusement no longer she would suddenly break out into a big, hearty laugh. “Ha, ha!” she would say. Even just a few short weeks before she died, Hilda would still recall her old fond description of me, that is, that I’m her ‘fat friend’. At 5’2” I am a little shorter and rounder than Hilda who stood model-thin at 5’4”.
In the picture taken by her father that she gave me when we were in high school, she was wearing her high school uniform and standing in front of their house in BF Paranaque. Her short but sweet message was: “May we be the best of friends till death do us part! (naks) Please keep this. Just me, Hilda Layug” In her graduation picture, she had the same short but sweet message: “Dear Juris, I hope that you will remember the lovely times that we’ve spent together. You have become my good ol’ buddy in just a few months and I have learned to love you as I love my family. Stay gold! Love, Hilda Layug”
When we were just both starting to work, we would religiously keep track of each other birthdays. I would always call her on her birthday and we would celebrate it by eating out. Our favorite eating place was Wendy’s. When we had our batch reunion sometime in 2004, she made me solemnly promise that I would make her my maid of honor should I get married. Still much later, when I had become busier with my other commitments, she would keep our friendship alive through emails and occasional calls. Hilda was a faithful friend. Even after more than twenty years, she still hadn’t forgotten how we were and that how I was her ‘best (or, also fondly referred to by her as her ‘pest’) friend’.
Even just from having had Hilda as a friend, one can come to realize and appreciate that it was God who created friends. Friends help us grow into better persons by helping us discover and affirm ourselves. What I learned from Hilda is that true friends are almost child-like in their openness, acceptance of, and love for each other. In the eyes of our friends, no matter what the time or place, I will always be I, you will always be you, and friends will always be friends, no what may change. We will forever be our best, happy, child-like, free, and confident selves.
Even if I will miss her physical presence, I know that she is still very much around in spirit. If I could only hear her speak now, she would probably say that she’s already okay and that everything’s fine. At least, I am happy to note that she is safely now back in the bosom of our Father in heaven.
My favorite description of friendship is that it is round or a circle—that it has no beginning and no end and that friends just keep on passing the ball of friendship back to each other. The description applies to us. I can no longer recall when our friendship actually started. Hilda told me, in our grade school years. It doesn’t really matter now, though, when and where it all started.
We have been through many phases and farewells in our lives. This is also how I have grown to Hope that none of our goodbyes is really for good, and neither is this one for good. In our common Faith (Hilda was a church-going Catholic), death is not the end. Our Lord Jesus Christ showed us how the Love of God can help us triumph over death. He bodily rose again from the dead and is alive. Because He is the only Holy, Mighty and Immortal God, it is only He who can give life and who can take it back in His Time.
That Hilda had, although short, a happy life that is full of love that I witnessed and spent in part with her shows us that God loves us and cares for our temporal well-being as well. In addition, He wants to give us Eternal Life and is preparing us for it. In my humble opinion, I believe that Hilda was a good Christian and Catholic. That is why I can already congratulate her for making it to heaven. I also know that trusting in God’s Infinite Goodness, Mercy and Love, he will allow Hilda and me to meet again in His Time.
In the meantime, the memory of Hilda and our life-long friendship will remain a burning inspiration in my heart, and I know also in the hearts of our family members and friends, of how a life simply lived and a long-lasting childhood friendship can demonstrate to us the Infinite breadth and depth of God’s Love. I love you and God bless you, Hilda, my friend!
Juris Bernadette M. Tomboc (July 5, 2008)
