In memoriam

Apologies for such a sad note.

I have a friend who died, a year ago, I was never notified, no one ever knew we were constant friends, no one ever knew how our friendship was, we had no pictures together, we never met regularly. I can't show anything to prove our friendship..

I got the news about his death from an old friend of his, and a new industry contact of mine.. He couldn't give me details then, I just couldn't confirm anything.. I don't know any of his numbers, his girlfriend's number, his girlfriend's name.. I don't actually don't remember how to spell his name right.

I met him because he did the mural backdrop for one of our college plays, he was a constant visitor in my theater rehearsals then sa school and when I went pro at the Metropolitan Theater or Intramuros..

I graduated from college and he stayed on, pero our friendship never stopped.

He went the way of street activism, my first job was in an advertising agency..

He has always been patient in showing me his world and his "isms", one of our sessions, he explained to me the troubles of one picket line near my workplace, he managed to convince me to go to the line, from there we stayed with the strikers together for the whole day.. until evening had to go because i still had a prescribed curfew. He had confidence in me to get the issue and somehow be involved.

We tried to change each other's ways, siguro maturity na rin he went from radical to subtle, I went from dispassionate to semi-advocate.

And then he showed me his other passions, his art… I never knew how good an artist he was, never went to his gigs, never read his poetry except for some letters he gave me. For a time he also brought me to his poetry readings, where I never got anyway, just because my artistry never became ripe, the only work i saw was his mural…

We did our constant reporting, mine was usually about career and love and he always had something to say about changing names in SO, company information in my updates (oo nga, he survived 6 boyfriends and 7 company changes) Siya, stories about his music, filmmaking passions.. His trip to europe and its churches.. Basta maraming kwentuhan, matagal..we just knew we had good conversation, somebody out of our world who we can share life with. Kuwento, kuwento…

And then the calls just stopped. Siya naman yung usually tumatawag. Ako naman laging merong landline, or a constant cellphone number. My parents even gave him my number when I went QC and then Pasig (strict yung mga yun, he he hindi nagbibigay ng number ko sa guys -- ha ha.) His calls were regularly irregular, di naman kami scheduled, isa siya sa constant and welcome surprises ng buhay ko kaya nung matagal na wala akong tawag..i wasn't worried.. then the news came… shock!

Shock pero still I had no details, our friendship is actually not about knowing details, about our lives and goings on. Hanggang death I didn’t know, ngayon lang.. Kasi I thought about googling him. And there he was, confirmed.

We always had a fun way of greeting each other pag birthday, makakalimutin din yan e.. August, and October -- he goes malapit na birthday mo, I go: maaga pa, then will miss it and will call October -- malapit na birthday mo… lagi niyang namimiss.. Ako din.. Hindi ako swak sa date. So it's January XX, 1970 - April 4, 2006.

Arlie Gideon Nava. You will surely be missed.