Life in Perspective (part 1 of 2)

1 March 2008

Today my college friends and I laid a very, very dear friend of ours to rest. John Julian “Jay” Tan III, one of my best friends (and the would-have-been host of my wedding and the ninong of my future first-born), died due to complications arising from his kidney transplant and the medications that he had to take after it. Although the apparent cause of death was cardiac arrest, Jay had already battled heart and kidney diseases months—even years—before his passing. He was only 32.

I received the text about Jay’s passing on the afternoon of February 25, while I was at the Ateneo grounds preparing for a big concert “for truth, accountability, and reform.” I will never forget that scene: I was doing a last-minute text blast to friends, encouraging them to join the concert, when the text about Jay came—and from someone outside my college group. I immediately knew that it was true (because nobody would dare joke about Jay), but I just stood there for a few minutes—in shock and trying to collect my wits, until a volunteer rushed to me, asking a question while tears streamed down my face. There I was, doing something that was supposed to “make a difference” in the country, and yet one of my favorite people had died without having felt my presence while he was sick. I’m not sure I made much of a difference in Jay’s life in the weeks before we passed away.

It was a big slap on the face for me—as if the Universe were saying, “For all your ‘noble’ aspirations, you couldn’t be there for your friend. And now he’s gone. What good does ‘saving the world’ do when you couldn’t save your friend?”

The last phone conversation we had was about a DVD I excitedly bought for him at a sale in Greenbelt. Jay had a HUGE DVD collection at home, and I had borrowed two Spanish titles years ago and then lost them when we transferred homes. I knew that Jay was deeply disappointed, but he never showed it. I promised to get him a new copy and only got to do so—and an original one at that!—three years later. So I excitedly called him up and told him that I bought him an original DVD, and I promised to visit him “soon” to do marathon DVD-watching.

His reply was, “When will that be? You always promise to visit, but you haven’t yet.”

That was another slap in the face. Among my many circles of friends, I’m probably known as a flaker because I usually confirm my attendance at gatherings early—only to back out at the last minute because of events that I have to attend or cover, because of deadlines that I need to meet, or because of immobility. The bottomline is: work has become a very convenient excuse to miss social gatherings, and now I’m realizing how important those coffees and dinners really are. They might be the last you’ll ever have with someone.

So I’m saddened not because Jay is gone (because he is fully alive in my heart and in my soul), but because I was not able to show him how much I loved and cared for him when he needed his friends the most. While I was busy going about my work and enjoying the lifestyle that it enabled me to have, my “brother” was immobilized by his medical condition and had to give up a lot of the things that he enjoyed. And I couldn’t even cheer him up.

Events like this make you wonder what your life is really all about. They challenge the value you place upon your family, friends, and emotional support structure. They force you to rethink your priorities and figure out where things really fall within the entire scheme of things. They make you look at the things that you value most and ask you, “Does it really make a difference?”

One Saturday would have meant so much to Jay, and I couldn’t even give him that. And now he’s gone. And there will be countless Saturdays without him.