The last time I saw Romy...

...Was towards Christmas of 2017 in the lovely home of Dr. Melendre Araos in Antipolo. I brought my annual and traditional food offering of Cunanan Bakery ensaymada. Midway, while I was having my traditional sips of Melen's molo soup, photojournalist Romeo Gacad arrived bearing a tray of red eggs. He was home for the holidays. I was surprised, nay, shocked at how he had drastically lost weight. His skin and bones clung to his already lanky frame.

Then he told us about his battle with cancer, how at one point he was losing so much blood and needed to be evacuated (from Myanmar? I forget that detail now) by helicopter to Thailand so a more advanced medical team could attend to him. I remembered the Romy who was at his prime, looking out for news at another annual event--the lantern parade ushering the Christmas holidays at UP Diliman. I was a returning freshman working on my second degree in fine arts. My younger classmates and I were building a gigantic papier mache replica of a kapre, that cigar-smoking creature of Philippine mythology. I hailed Romy and proudly showed the still unfinished handiwork of the freshman class. Himself a UP fine arts alumnus, he gingerly stepped around our work, then asked my classmates and me to gather around the kapre while he took some pictures. My more agile classmates climbed the kapre's bamboo frame just so we didn't have a firing squad type of picture. I was too shy to ask Romy for a soft copy of the picture. That would have been for the books because that year (2005), our class won for best lantern in the university-wide competition. So Celina S. Cristóbal, here is my contribution to your virtual scrapbook of Romy memories. Photo courtesy of Melen Araos. Romy is the guy second from right.