Beth and remembrance

There is no death in remembrance... Remember me, and a part of me will always be with you.   – Kathleen Kent

Beth Celis has passed on. A pioneer, innovator, glass ceiling breaker, and most commonly referred to as a pillar of Philippine sportswriting. Above all else, she was a survivor, for many years battling ailments that she kept private, perhaps not wanting to show weakness in a man’s world where she had the rare stature of respected equal. And we grope for and blow the dust off trite tributes like “grand dame”, even if they don’t quite fit because frankly, we’re at a loss. How do you define someone who was always there, as sure as you got your morning newspaper? How do you quantify the contributions of someone who has outlived newspapers themselves?

Beth started her sportswriting career 15 years before this writer started as a broadcaster, and that alone says a lot. She spanned lifetimes, wrote or contributed to books, held gatherings at her home for her peers. Gender was never an issue as it would have been in other countries. But that’s probably because people knew Beth was more than competent. She was, for lack of a better term, one of the guys. She stood unflinching, shoulder to shoulder with editors, columnists and others more senior, never buckling, always producing. Always ready.

I remember the first local sports book I had ever owned back in the mid-1980’s. It was a white paperback about historic Filipino athletic achievements. It was already kind of old back then. I remember Beth being the only female contributor. Sadly, the book was lost when my house burned down in 1992. After the glory days of Sim Sotto at SCOOP, Beth took it upon herself to keep the organization going. Many years ago, she convinced this writer to run for president, though it wasn’t really my taste. That was the only time I ran for anything. It was a unique experience, honoring the best performers of Philippine sports.

It seems there is a changing tide in the affairs of sportswriting, of sports broadcasting. It’s an unsettling feeling when much of the familiar is taken away, unbidden. Almost a year ago already, Ronnie Nathanielsz passed away, still trying to be close to the action despite doctor’s orders. And it’s harder when it’s someone you’ve known and worked with. But in the last, the losses have accelerated. Our boss at Vintage Enterprises Bobong Velez; our Vintage colleague Pilar Estrella. Cris Bolado, other friends, workmates, acquaintances, whose losses dim our personal worlds irreversibly. You have to train your mind to refer to them in the past tense, and, like the illusions of genius John Nash Jr. in “A Beautiful Mind”, they will never age. There’s a pinch in the heart, as you go on without the familiar faces and voices.

But isn’t being remembered what we live for? Isn’t that what all the striving, losing sleep, sweating and facing discomfort is about? To have that one moment, or two or three or four, when we do something transcendent, noteworthy, memorable? Don’t we want to – at best – change someone’s life through inspiration or, at worst, be part of some big part of society’s highlight reel? The video commemorating God Shammgod’s (Shammgod Wells) ankle-breaking includes an uncredited clip of Terrence Romeo’s own killer crossover. In the sporting world, that’s something, because it didn’t need an authority figure, but the resounding vox populi of street-smart ballers.

There is some truth to the belief that time puts rose-colored glasses on the past. Things seemed simpler, easier, happier, maybe. The rough edges of our memories fade away, the emotions distilled. There is a certain longing, even for things that were just on the periphery, ciphers to our routine. We long to latch onto what we knew, and instinctively resist the discomfort of change. We feel a tinge of sadness for our favorite Sunday restaurant, our grandparents’ old house, high school, music from our formative years, matinee idols and pin-up models of our youth. (Do they even still use “pin-up model”?) It’s a natural impulse of the modern human.

What we mourn is the fact that they are no longer there, mixed with the dread that, inevitably, irresistibly, we are headed in that direction, too. And it shatters the illusion that we still have all the time in the world. But when friends younger than you die, it can get scary. Mortality waits for us all. Death and taxes, as they say, are the only constants in life. We all want someone, something, a touchstone to hang onto. 

So sure as your morning paper, Beth Celis is gone. That is the fact, the currency we journalists trade in. But there is no death in remembrance, more so for someone who was among the first, endured for so long, dug when others did not, sustained when others went on to other things. This is the stuff of memory, and all the lives touched on the way.

And what will be said of us when the time comes?