Tres Marias, tres Paulinas

Lulu Camello Pasamba, Marissa Ileto and I have known one another since we were in kindergarten--that's 58 years of involvement in things of childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, midlife and now, the autumn of our lives. But throughout our individual and distinctive journeys, we never lost our girlish giggles honed from years of shared fun at the campus of St. Paul College of Quezon City (now a university).

Since 2017, we've had yearly get-togethers to catch up on one another's life and doings, to air our hopes and frustrations in between nibbles of the best of the Christmas season from jamon serrano to slivers of Marca Piña cheese downed with coffee or something stiffer.

On Dec. 26, we decided on a leftover party. I brought the leftover Ponkan oranges from home, plus bars of Amparo's Apothecary soap for each of them. Speaking for myself, I think that warm baths with handmade soap are the ultimate luxury that is simple to achieve. So I've been handing out soap bars this season, to my blood sisters and to my chosen sisters like Marissa and Lulu.

From Marissa, I learned a new way to serve fried Spam. Just marinate in sugar before cooking, then the sugar provides a honeyed glaze. You can dip the meat in vinegar the way you would with tocino. For her fluffy omelette, she broke six eggs and threw in cheese, tomatoes and onions.

Lulu practically brought the contents of her fridge: potato soup, raisin bread, chicken inasal, banana loaf.

As the yearly hostess Marissa brought out the Lanelle Abueva Fernando bowls and plates and her best silverware, I realized that this was an exercise in graceful abundant living. Marissa gave each of us a lip balm. Lulu, a family medicine practitioner, brought out her acupuncture kit and offered half an hour's relaxation as she inserted needles in my knees and in Marissa's upper leg and ankle.

Before we parted, Lawin Ileto, Marissa's eldest child, took our pictures sober and drunken with merriment and the pleasure of each other's company in the house that is a chock-full of arts and crafts.

In Marissa Ileto's art-filled home, three Paulinians return. The hostess is the lady seated in the middle.

The lighter side of three professionals on the threshold of retirement

And Audrey was her name

Audrey Agatep General died Wednesday morning at the Asian Hospital in Alabang, Muntinlupa City. She had just turned 58 on Nov. 12.

Before she left too soon, she was managing director of Agatep Associates since 2002 until the family firm was rebranded into Havas PR Agatep.

To the Paulinians, she was just Audrey or Aud who used to sing to the Bread's '70s hit, "And Aubrey Was Her Name." I never got confirmation from her if her parents named her after Audrey Hepburn who was just startling the world in the 1953 film, Roman Holiday, with her rare beauty, charm, grace, generosity of spirit, leadership. Our Audrey developed all those traits, too, into her second nature. Aud was born two years later when Ms. Hepburn was the hottest actress in the film world because of her unconventional beauty: slim like a ballerina, with that marvelously cool voice that sounded like she was chewing balls of mint.

Yup, Aud was that way--never ever shrill. When frustrated with someone or something, she'd just end her SMS, and I could hear the sigh in the message that meant the problem wasn't worth wrapping her pretty head around: "Oh, Babeth, I have no more good words to say!" It was a way of ending a conversation, her re-assuming the role of Miss Manners who practiced business etiquette. She'd rather not speak ill of anyone but remember the good times shared.

It must have been on our senior year when Aud sang that song in a hushed soprano. She had been a Glee Clubber since Grade School, always standing on the front row. She was this petite girl with a spring to her walk, a smile that felt like a chum's rub on the back. Sister Gemma of the Cross, our music teacher, always put her on a special spot because she was adorable to look at as she sang her heart out. I wish I can find those mothballed yearbooks that show how cute (the kind of cute na nakakagigil) she was then.

In high school, she was part of this group called The Ragmals, a word formed out of the first letter of the names of seven Paulinians in the class who excelled in dancing, cheer leading, sports, academics, even getting the coveted invites to the best boy-girl parties.

But it was in dance that Audrey always had an edge over the rest. She kept at it all the way to her last months--jazz, Spanish flamenco, Argentine tango and salsa. Among the other dancers in the class, she always played the lead. The code was: "Just follow Audrey, and you won't miss a step." It was that way from high school to our silver and ruby jubilees.

Here's looking at you, Audrey/Aubrey:

And Aubrey was her name,
I never knew her, but I loved her just the same,
I loved her name.
Wish that I had found the way
And the reasons that would make her stay.
I have learned to lead a life apart from all the rest.
If I can't have the one I want, I'll do without the best.

But how I miss the girl
And I'd go a million times around the world just to say
She had been mine for a day.

But Aud, you must forgive me if I change my tune midway. I wanna end it with "Save the Last Dance for Me."

Like Lulu here, we wanna be reunited with you on the dance floor in heaven!

The open letter below is from Lulu Camello Pasamba, M.D., once our High School Student Council President.

dearest audrey,

i find it hard to believe that you are not here with us anymore. just when i had decided to volunteer to dance for our golden jubilee, with or without a cane as long as you're our lead dancer, you're gone! but what i find harder to believe is why a 57 year old physically fit and healthy person should die of an elective procedure!

i know of senior citizens operated on with more complicated problems like colon cancer and yet are up and about enjoying their retirement. sa inis ko i had to text my classmate, a distinguished colorectal surgeon...modesty aside...to ask why! he said there must have been a leak in the anastomosis. the anastomosis is the connection between the two ends of the colon that were joined after the defective colon segment was resected. a leak! poor surgical technique! tanong..sino ang gumawa? i ask myself is he/she as good as my classmate? sana nagtanong ka sa akin bago ka nagpaopera!..hay! some good doctors commit blunders, too, without meaning to...

life is short. this time last year we were panicking preparing for our ruby. ang gulo di ba? pero natapos din ang commemorative book and your group made us proud with your dance number. little did we know then that it would be your farewell performance.

thank you for your dedication to our class, for the times you put your private life on hold to organize a number for the spcq homecoming.

we love you and you will be dearly missed....

--lulu camello pasamba

Audrey (from row, left) reliving Paulinian days with us in that checkered sailor uniform we wore five times a week for, what, 13 years?

Didn't I tell you Aud always took center stage? There she is leading the dancers grooving to the Fifth Dimension's "Age of Aquarius."

The one in the middle, front row, is Aud, the sophisticate who never lost the girl in her.

When we were very young

While I was in between jobs this year, I had time to look over old albums and retake photos of the contents in hopes that I could preserve them through my Facebook albums and this blog. I managed to upload a number in FB, and they got a wide range of comments from page visitors, comments like how happy the children looked or how come we didn't buy the kids nice clothes (from disgruntled fashion-conscious daughter and niece).

Hermie Beltran put it so well when he commented: "As always, old photos, like old songs, touch our deepest chords."

Here I am getting all sentimental and "emo" with the holidays and a new year approaching. So before the photos, the old-fashioned kind, not the ones from the digicam, are feasted on by silverfish and termites, I'm posting them during this lull between deadlines.

I wonder how we will all look like 10 years down the road?

At my cousins' house on McKinley road, Forbes Park.

With my grand-aunt Lucy Yatco Nelle who worked for the longest time at Coca-Cola Corp. (I was already in college and she was still working for Coke. This somehow made me partial to that soda.)

Dad holds me up at the old Server pool in Forbes Park, still in the halcyon '50s. Daddy was a sportsman in his own way: he could swim, ride a horse, bowl, fish, jog, play golf.

That's cousin Shorty Server carrying me on my second birthday in our house in Santa Mesa, Manila.

Fast forward to the '80s. That's my partner of 27 years Rolly Fernandez enjoying his day off with his young wife (that should be me) at Puerto Azul, Cavite, in February 1985, a few months before our first child was born.

Here I am, pregnant with Kimi, at the first home Rolly and I made in Antipolo, Rizal, 1985. Rolly had a bar built to divide the kitchen-dining areas from the receiving area. (I must ask my techie daughter how to turn my photo right side up. Sorry about that.)

And here are my girls, the older one ill with asthma at the time this picture was taken, the younger one, Ida, showing the makings of a fattie. But Ida grew to be tall and slim. Kimi was strong enough to attend this birthday party at my friend Lulu Camello Pasamba's house sometime in the '80s.

The circle of life nearly completes itself.Soundtrack from the movie "Lion King" can be heard in the background. Kimi is now a mother herself. Her daughter Kai (infamously nicknamed Butones by this grandma) has brought so much happiness in our lives that I can't help but close my visual narrative with her as clincher.