Shades of Rey

(Joseph P. Ligason)

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum – Diogenes Laertius

One afternoon, I was rushing to the neighbor who used to be the had it all solution of all times. Insie Naring knew the faces, magnitude and extent of “ingkantos” visiting a person when they are agitated and disturbed. It seemed she had an answer to all the adversities and complexities of life. I was tasked to bring her home because my elder brother flumped as he arrived in the house. 

Immediately, Insie held the wrist of my brother, to read whatever she could have learned on the condition of him. While my brother was grasping his breath, Insie noticed something else. “We cannot do anything, he fell because he is drunk as a shunk.” This happened many times before already as my grandma recalled but she didn’t know the cause. Twin bro shared that once he was laughing to see Nonoy coming home in boots as no one had had in the family. As he asked the latter’s hand to bless, he noticed that the black color was mud. He was just coming from a drinking-bout. At a young age, he drinks like a fish already and espouses the fallacy that a glass of wine eases the stress away. He hit the bottle when facing some issues and concerns. 

Reynaldo Ligason was born October 30, 1966. He was the second child in a brood of five. His younger brothers and sister called him “Nonoy”. Perhaps, it was an emendation of “Manoy”, a Filipino argot to an elder brother, or to someone elder as a code of respect. I could not remember more troubles he had being a drunkard than one. He had his palm bandaged because of the sword that slipped through it instead to the scabbard during the Citizen Army Training (CAT) in the school. But later it was known that he got his palm wounded as it was used to shield himself from a knife attack during a drinking session. 

While most boozers enjoy every shot with matching discussions of current events, fallacious arguments of highfalutin words, or babbling the distress or scandal in the neighborhood, he doesn’t. While others shared secrets when intoxicated, he didn’t say a thing. He was an aberrant drinker. He invited anyone to drink with him in the construction site where I was working. The zucallo digger took the challenge. He shared a glass with him and before the digger raised again the 12-pounder sledge hammer, he handed over the glass for the second shot. So fast, that the long-neck rum was consumed in 10 minutes. Nonoy left the site as he watched the digger fall and crawled. “When I drink, I want to get drunk.”

On the lighter side, I considered him a responsible drinker, though not moderate. But it is not vivifying: “drink responsibly!” While he was drinking rum or beer, I was sipping my hot cup of coffee talking to him, on a few occasions. Though, how hard the kick of the horse hit him in the session, he never failed to wake up at 5 in the morning to wash his smeared clothes and prepare something for breakfast. I consider it a sense of responsibility because the day’s schedule is still attended to despite the discomfort that yesterday’s session brings. 

When I was a little kid, I remembered that he read books and magazines at 5 in the morning, he swept the ground at 6, ate breakfast at 7 and resumed reading by 8. No one else that I had known in my family did such a routine on weekends and summertime. He disciplined himself in order to gain knowledge and to learn new things. He was a graduate of Bible International Correspondence School (ICS), a modular course with pamphlets he received every month. He must have a symbiotic relationship with his table that he knew if there had been anything taken off, and or was it seated on while he was away.

When he was not busy reading, he made sketches of our house, trees, neighbor’s and everything that caught his interest. He also made sketches of us twins.  I never appreciated such skill until I visited an art exhibition of sketches in Manila, fifteen years later. I never admired the top rail and terminal post cap in the sketches until I learned that framing and foreground are important elements of a good photograph. 

When he was in college, he won the national essay writing competition sponsored by the Knights of Rizal. Years later when I had a subject of Rizal’s writings, and reading almost all the commentaries of his, I noticed that Rey’s points of view and sequence of expressions were of the same with the national hero’s.  Having been out of town for ten years, I received two letters from him with thoughts beautifully crafted.  But I never read any essay from him other than the contest piece. He had written 8 poems already and that encouraged me to write my own too. Had his achievement(s) not encouraged me to write on my own, this article would be impossible. 

What was also admirable about Rey is his working attitude. His work is his life. My late aunt, who stayed with us, complained at the breakfast table that she was awakened by a dragging and a sniffle sound at four o’clock dawn. It was because Rey started the finishing work of the kitchen wall that early. I asked why he did it early. He replied that he would be out of town after lunch and he would have less time to finish it. The construction workers also complained to their boss because they woke up at five in the morning. Rey started welding the iron posts and he needed cement mix to hold them. When asked why that early, he said he had nothing to do and it would be a waste of time to wait till 8 o’clock. He started his work very early and only stopped when the pounding sound of a hammer brawled the deafening silence of the night. Rey had never been late in any appointment or in reporting to work. 

Another lighter shade of Rey is his keenness for music. He played guitar like a pro. Together with the eldest and a neighbor of their age, they accompanied Sunday Masses and other activities in the chapel. He was not always heard singing but he sang well in a karaoke bar where I treated him for a consummated project.  He even had one song composition: “Paningkamot Ug Panikaysikay” which musical scoring was perfected by my friend for the Humanities requirement in college.  In the band, he played the bass. He played running bass, a more creative form of bass playing than the other swing style. Listening to the music or particularly the bass accompaniment through a cassette player in 15 to 20 minutes, he would surely play it perfectly well. I was fascinated by how he played “Do Bi Doo”, “Hotel California” and Beatles songs bass accompaniment. More than that, he created his own bass guitar. But he jabbled fret fingers to make things more confusing to me.  He never taught me how to play guitar. When bamboo flute was not yet available in the local stores, he made it by burning an iron to make holes on the bamboo pipe. He played different tunes with it so well. Ah! He broke it when he caught me using it. He never lent anything to me. 

On August 11, 2020 in the morning, I visited him at the hospital for the second time. His wife was there at the ICU. I noticed that the cardiac monitor displayed unusual graph. Right away, I sensed that there was something wrong. I composed myself. I got closer to him, I held his head and whispered “Noy, kung magkita mo ni Jesus extend my regards to Him, ingna si mama ug papa I miss them so much.” I went to the nurse’s station to relay my observation. A nurse came over, checked the monitor and left. In a few minutes, a doctor came and declared that he is already gone. His eldest son came and left. The attached apparatus were slowly removed from him. It was a few minutes after nine in the morning. I was still there at the ICU when I called my niece, in Cebu, informing her his passing away. But item number 22 in the death certificate say “death occurred at 02:21PM”. Amazing. 

After 10 days of confinement, he expired due to respiratory failure. With the MRI result, two ruptures had been found. The first one can be traced back 20 years ago; the second one was less than two weeks. It took 3 days for him to agree to be hospitalized. To carry a burden all by himself without disturbing others was his frame of mind. But such positive stance was at his disadvantage. If he could have been brought to the hospital earlier, his condition might not become complicated. 

Looking back those years, I ascertained two things. Rey was closefisted to me in every aspect (darker side of him), especially when I was a little kid. But he was so passionate with his craft (brighter side), that I was always excitedly waiting for the next wave of his (unsung) achievements. I was 10 years old then when he caught me reading his poems. He said “start writing on your own, my little boy”. “Noy, thank you for such encouragement, that is still vivid and evocative to me until now.”

God bless his soul.