MEMORIES OF ROSE

 The morning sun was high above Regis Hall, but the breeze gently blowing at Borromeo Field during the parade was cold to the skin, as if signaling the approach of the . . .ber months. Rightly so, in barely 3 days it was going to be September 1, 1969. The Cadet Corp, Armed Forces of the Philippines has just retired to their quarters after concluding the Saturday Inspection and parade.  It was a Saturday different from any other. It was a very special Saturday --- it was open house at the Philippine Military Academy --- the only time when visitors can tour the premises, including the rooms of cadets, a very rare occasion for relatives and friends of the cadets to enter and be at the living quarters of their beloved ones. Open-house at the PMA happens, quite literally, just once in a blue moon! 

 Room 228 was speck and span. It is the first room at the eastern entrance of Regis Hall. Cadet lockers were in top shape, beds properly fixed, each pillow topped by a cadet Pershing cap which was worn just minutes ago at the parade. Open house had just begun but room 228 was already nearly full with curious visitors appreciating, perhaps wondering how the cadet lockers were kept so uniformly tidy and beautifully arranged, from towels to under wears, to gala uniforms. Among these visitors was a group of five from Teachers’ Camp. They were delegates of the Olongapo City National High School to the on-going annual Children’s Museum and Library Inc convention. Miss Evangeline Pascual, teacher and chaperon, saw to it that her group was intact at all times while they were touring the academy. Among those in her group was Rosario Valera Calvelo who was a senior student and the school representative to the convention. She was inquisitive, full of energy, admiring and touching everything and anything within her reach. The two double-deck beds in the room, side by side of each other were a sight to behold, especially with the Pershing caps atop the pillows. She picked up and fitted one of the caps, gazed at Miss Pascual as if asking how she looks: “that’s a perfect fit” Miss Pascual concluded. Ms. Calvelo attempted to pick up another from the other bed, but before she could put the cap down, the cadet tour- guide exclaimed “Aha, you wore that one --- please don’t leave while I call the owner of the cap, pointing to the cap the visitor was still holding.  Cadet Remegio Pascua Santos, or Arpee71, as he was called to distinguish him from other cadets with the same family name, was the owner. He was currently the Cadet in-Charge of Quarters (CCQ), serving at the Guard Room which was two rooms away. At the Guard Room Cadet Hercules Cataluna excitedly informed Arpee71 of the incident. In just a moment, the two cadets were at Room 228 where the CMLI convention delegates were waiting as requested, not even knowing why they had to wait.  After some greetings, Cadet Santos informed the group: “It is the Academy’s revered tradition for a cadet to kiss the lady who wears his cap”. Lady? --- by her looks, she was barely a lady, at most, maybe just 15 or 16 years old. Turning to the visitor whom Cadet Cataluna earlier indicated as the one who wore the cap, Arpee71, just like a gentleman that he was supposed to be, hesitantly muttered: “In observance of the academy’s tradition, may I kiss you, Miss?” She did not flinch nor utter a word, but she nodded in response. To Arpee it was a trait showing herself as the kind of person that she is, who accepts and faces the consequence of her action, no matter what. To his mind, she is a girl quite responsible, bold, daring --- no ‘pakipot’, unlike any other. It was this trait that captivated Arpee71 the most, and with that one single kiss, a fire started to burn in him. 

 As if this incident was pre-planned years ahead; as if Divine Providence conceived of this grand plan for two souls to meet somewhere and sometime in the distant future.  The year was 1946.  That year was especially significant, not only because of the Philippine Independence which was granted in July, but more so because of two other events, which, like bible prophecy, must come to pass. Far from the seat of government where Philippine Independence was pompously celebrated, about 600 kilometers southeast, in the Bicol Region, in Panganiban, Catanduanes, on July 19, 1946, Remegio Pascua Santos was born to a modest family of five, three siblings, all boys. In another event north of Manila, Olongapo City National High School was founded under the Reservation Administration of the United States government. From this school would be produced a model student, a consistent valedictorian, who would graduate in High School on top of more than a thousand others. Her name, Rosario Valera Calvelo, the very same one who would be at the Philippine Military Academy to wear a cap that was not her own.  After that meeting at the PMA, Arpee71 and Rosie had now been exchanging notes, not so frequently, but often enough to keep their lines open. On March 28, 1971, Arpee graduated as 2nd Lieutenant in the regular force of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Choosing to join the Philippine Air Force, he took up pilot training at Fernando Air Base, Lipa City. By this time, Rosie was on her 3rd year in Chemical Engineering at the University of Santo Tomas. One night when Arpee visited her at the boarding house, she confided that she was failing in some of her subjects and that she was considering to quit in her studies. It was hard to understand why a scholar, a consistent valedictorian at that, would fail in her subjects. “I cannot concentrate because you are always in my mind”, she further confided.  That very same night, they both agreed on the inevitable --- to walk down the aisle, to set aside her studies for the moment, and to continue with it at some future date. But that date never came as she carried her first child, long before enrollment time the following year. 

 So it happened --- the ups and downs of family living --- two, three and then four children. With kids in tow, Rosie would visit neighbors to sell some goods Arpee would bring home from places of his assignments: dried mango, mango nectar and longaniza from Cebu; luncheon meat, rice noodles, batik clothing from Zamboanga, PX goods from Subic,Tarlac and Pampanga, and a lot more. But what she loved the most were orchids from the local farms in Lipa and Lucena. Soon, she joined the Lipa Orchids Society from where she brought home and planted her favorite orchids at her front yard garden.  Hobby at first, it became a family life-line when all four children went to college in Manila and a soldier’s salary proved wanting. Her business boomed to a point that her father, Tatay Onie, feared for her coming home alone with lots of money, every day. Too good but true, it ended when she was required to transfer her place of business to a different location.  Here, customers came in trickle, if at all. Now there was no more money to bring home, not even good news about her business. That was when she felt the sting of financial burden, of the need to enroll four children to college.  “One of them or two have to stop”, Arpee decided when expenses at De La Salle University soared beyond reach. “HINDI.  WALANG TITIGIL SA KANILA! IGAGAPANG KO YAN!”, Rosie insisted. Perseverance paid off, and all four graduated in due time. 

 With all four children done with education, Arpee and Rosie migrated to the United Sates to pursue their application for Citizenship. At the same time they took advantage of the opportunity to save for the construction of a modest house that would be their own. There is no place like home, so they say, and so on April 16, 2015, Arpee71 and Rosie, now simply known  as Arpee and Rose, headed home to the Philippines, particularly in Ibabao, Cuenca, Batangas where they had a property of about a hectare. Day in and day out, while a house was being built, Arpee and Rose travelled by bus from Fort Bonifacio to Ibabao to oversee the construction. Sensing some dangers along the way while alighting from a still running bus, where bus stop was prohibited, Rose imagined a possible news headline in the morning: “TWO U.S. CITIZENS HIT BY A SPEEDING CAR AT EDSA’.  But this did not deter their resolve.  By November, the house was habitable, so it was time to transfer to a permanent home, HOME, SWEET HOME! 

 Days passed, months and years, with Rose and Arpee now focusing on the improvements  to what would be the permanent site of a love affair, not only between two souls born for each other, but also with their Creator and the creator of all that they called their own. Every Sunday after mass, as they would walk to their parked car, Rose and Arpee would share capfuls of warm taho, boiled corn, or whatever food from vendors lining the street by the Saint Isidore Parish Church.  They were very happy indeed;  in fact they were so elated reminiscing how they strolled Luneta Park and the sidewalks around the University of Santo Tomas, savoring whatever they had while dating many, many years back. 

 So again, it happened. Their vows of love now running 51 long years, “for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health, for better or for worse, till death do us part”. It happened exactly like that! Rose got sick, diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer at the St Lukes Medical Center. No symptoms, no pain, but sick.  Seven long months off and on in the hospital, six chemo therapy sessions, and 2.6 million pesos with no improvement.  She transferred to the Queen’s Medical Center in the USA to no avail. On November 28, 2024, Thanks Giving Day, thanking the Lord for a life so well spent, at the hospital, she became just a memory. 

 Her lifeless body arrived in the Philippines one week before Christmas Day. It was a Christmas replete with the usual merriment and gift giving, unlike every other Christmases before, when it had been customary for Rosie to distribute grocery baskets to neighbors of no less than 25 families--- keso de bola, ham, and Red Ribbon chocolate rolls.  Christmas mornings, would find her seated by the porch entertaining children who would come to sing Christmas carols and each child would receive crisp fifty-peso bill and a “Zip-lockful” of chocolate candies packed weeks before. Even children from far-flung barangays who had heard of such gift-giving tradition would come to have a share. Rose was indeed very happy, in her own words, “sharing her blessings with others”.  This year though, the children all came but missed their lady Santa Claus and the gift they were anticipating to receive. Merry Christmas no more. 

 Arpee has never been so devastated at this loss of the most important and most loved person in his life, the very one who went through thick and thin with him, offering him joy when there was sorrow, and hope when everything seemed lost;  the only one who brought life to two souls who stuck it out together throughout the years.  Encouragements abound, though: “accept it gracefully and move on --- she’s now free of pain and worries, and she is now with the Lord”. But to Arpee, no words of encouragement can mitigate his longing for who is supposed to be a life-time partner, and for someone who dedicated  her whole life to him, that even in death, it was still  Arpee71 that mattered most,  as she gave herself up at the age that tells all. She was 71 . . . devoted, devout, the first, the last, the only one there ever was!  REST IN PEACE DEAREST ONE . . .