FAREWELL, REY NACUSPAD

Just woke up to a dreary, rainy day.
I spent last night trying to process my feelings toward my quirky editorial assistant and friend and defender R, at whose wake I came to visit.
I still can't believe I will never ever hear his hyaenic laughter and all his sexist, ageist, racist, rich-versus-poor, etc'ist comments about life again. A highly opinionated person, he was wont to introduce a theory into cocktail conversations that never failed to shock, scandalize people and then reduce them to guilty giggles. He knew world history like the back of his hand and, a master of sweeping generalizations, he would use it to make conversation pieces that the politically correct would at best find uncomfortable to digest. But that's what he loved. He loved challenging the self-righteous and the well-mannered, who often always ended up loving him. R is quirk personified and, without a doubt, that was his charm, although I have personally had quite a few battles with it, always hushing him, warning him, scolding him (and at once encouraging, pushing him) about embarrassing me in public.
As a co-worker, he was to me both a blessing and a curse (especially in the beginning). A free spirit, he was pretty much a drifter in the beginning, always late, always absent, always causing trouble, always sowing intrigues, and often sleeping on the job. God knows how many times I had to throw a book down his desk to jolt him out of his daydreams, how many times I had screamed at him, how many times I had to send him home. Once, mad that he was being useless, I made him feel useless for over a week, making sure he spent day after day with nothing to do and snatching away whatever it was was that he tried to do, whether it was to read the proofs or to use the phone.
Oh, but I revel in those memories, in retrospect, because, later on, he proved to be indispensable to my operation.
He gave me the loyalty I thought I did not require and he helped cement many of the relationships I forged with people with whom I needed to collaborate in my editorial efforts. Though he loved challenging me, we were a team, through thick and thin, and he loved me, as boss, as co-worker, as friend and understood me completely. With his penchant for exaggeration, he was the type who would make it appear that I was more important than I was, harrassing security guards, for instance, to save a slot for me because "Mr. P is arriving and Mr. P will not tolerate waiting," whoever Mr. P was, but somehow he could convey the message that Mr. P was one they should not mess with! How many times had I scolded him for making such a fuss (especially because he was doing it not so much for me but for his own perverse way of having fun), but inside I just had to hand it to him for orchestrating many a "grand entrance" for me!
Too young to die!
Too much of a life to succumb to death so quickly, so easily!
The past year has not been easy for R, when his health began to degenerate. Oh he suffered many things, including many a heartbreak, resulting from the dramatic turn of events at the workplace. I'd like to think he has recovered from the trauma, but the toll these heartbreaks took on his health!
Still and all, when I look back, R's last great mission was to put Humpty Dumpty together again. He paved the way for me to get back to what I now enjoy and to put my team together again. I know I did not fail to recognize what he had done for me, but I feel sorry that he cannot be here anymore to enjoy what the seeds he helped sow will bear as the future unfolds.
R passed away at ten in the evening of December 8 at the Philippine General Hospital, where he was confined for what proved to be negative for meningitis. I believe his heart failed him this time.
Goodbye, R! Farewell!
I would warn you not to scandalize the angels too much and not to risk the wrath of God with your hyaenic laugther that is sure to shatter the serenity of heaven, but I don't want to deprive them of the infinite pleasures I and the rest of our friends had drawn from your presence here on earth!
A