Missing Linc

Lincoln Rex Q. Drilon with his guitar Photo from the Facebook of Chit Drilon

Already the sting of his sudden departure--dying peacefully in his sleep yesterday morning--is beginning to sink in. I'm writing this as fast as I can to catch the whirl of memories Linc left behind while it's still fresh.

Lincoln Rex Quimpo Drilon was more than a friend and extended family member. He was companion and troubadour to many of life's milestones. He sang "My Foolish Heart," the theme song of my parents, at Mom's 75th birthday, bringing her to tears. At Rolly Fernandez's and my silver wedding jubilee in 2009 he emceed the program of songs and piano music, sitting beside writer Pablo Tariman so the latter could get through the song "Some Enchanted Evening." At my daughter Kimi Fernandez's baby shower in 2011, Linc was there to croon "Moon River" to the infant still in the mother's womb.

But Linc was many other splendored things besides being a fine emcee and crooner. He was a terrific fundraiser for quixotic causes, whether it's for an ailing friend or for keeping the environment clean and green. He was there, ready with the mic or his guitar. He even had a short-lived project called Club Nostalgia where like-minded individuals with a yen for singing old songs gathered for a drink and a turn at the mic.

Rolly recalls how Linc and his best friend-sidekick Rey Maceda, a geologist, camped for many weeks at the then uninhabited Potipot Island in Candelaria, Zambales. The island's owners, Nany and Nancy Fernandez, tasked Linc and Rey with listing down the flora and fauna of the place. This meant literally counting even the coconut trees. They took their work seriously. The occasional visitor would feel surprised to see numbers on tree trunks.

After a hard day's work, the two settled down to drink. For pulutan Linc skillfully filleted and deboned fish which he turned into sashimi. Whatta layp it was!

One of the few things I am proud of is introducing Linc to the great photographer of the Cordillera, Tommy Hafalla, another of my favorite guys. The two struck up a unique friendship while climbing mountains in the Cordi on a Museum of Man project.

His devotion to wife Maria Esperanza P. Drilon, nicknamed Chit, is the stuff of legend among us. If memory serves, during a marital spat, he wooed her back in Lincoln fashion. In a restaurant or club in Cubao, he "conspired" with Bobi Valenzuela to have "Seventh Dawn," apparently the couple's theme song, played over and over in the sound system as Linc danced a slow drag with Chit. That paved the way for a reconciliation.

You haven't really lived until you've heard Linc do a heartfelt rendition of "Seventh Dawn," a song made famous by The Lettermen. The voice is gone, but I hear it still.

Now it's called happy love mail

"I am guilty of pushing snail mail on you just about every other blog post. But you know how when you discover something really great, you want to tell everyone about it? That’s me with snail mail … since, like, 1996, when I figured out how to write...My hope is that if you currently have trouble thinking of reasons to write letters, you’ll be inspired to churn one out this weekend." -

I agree with Ms. Bugbee's view, and I'm also pushing snail mail in my blog apart from the Artists Trading Cards movement. Mine isn't a physically demonstrative family. Rolly, Kimi, Ida and I show a physical demonstration of love that overflows on The Wee One who is just learning how to write. Among ourselves (the four adults), we write, email and text.

While I was researching for an Inquirer article on the advantages of writing love letters in longhand, Rolly lent me the correspondence among family members and friends that he had safeguarded all these decades. Reading them brought long and vivid flashbacks to time spent on other parts of the archipelago and of the world. So I thank you, my Valentine of almost 31 years, our family's philatelist, for keeping these written records.

My first postcard to The Wee One mailed from Bohol where Rolly and I marked our 30th or pearl anniversary as a married couple.

The Tintin card I bought at the newly opened Tintin shop in Singapore's Chinatown in 2012. I used it as a get-well card to family members when the cold was circulating in the Baguio house. I can sound like a quack doctor during medical emergencies.

Poet Luisa A. Igloria thinking of what kind of old women she and I will be. We're almost there, Luisa!

Our dear daughter Kimi writes to her folks from Macau although they were travelling as a family here.

From Nanay to Tatay who write to one another even as they travel together

A father's contrite note to his daughters after he loses their list of what to buy for them as pasalubongin Hongkong

A postcard from our kumpare, Wilson Bailon, then Senate reporter of Manila Chronicle and who was invited by the US government to observe a presidential campaign in progress

From a man of scanty words to his wife and travel companion. The postcard with a photo by Tommy Hafalla was mailed from the town of Sagada, Mountain Province

Another postcard from Thailand from journalist Frank Cimatu, who's a diehard Noranian, to my daughter Kimi

The most precious item in Rolly Fernandez's collection: a postcard from then Foreign Affairs Secretary Carlos P. Romulo addressed to Rolly's then boss Neal H. Cruz. The card was lying around on the untidy common news desk, and Rolly as is his wont, "saved" it. Must be worth something in e-Bay.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga