The last open letter to Daboy
Dear Daboy,
No more tubes, no more dextrose bottles, no more oxygen tank...no more pain!
This afternoon, after a Mass at 3 p.m. at the Heritage Park, your eternal resting place, when all your family and friends and fans shall have gone home to start their own moving on, you will be left all alone for the first time with only the chirping of the birds to cheer you and the rustling of the leaves.
Peace, at last!
How fitting for you to return to His Bosom on this day, the country’s Independence Day, because you are now free from the earthly tests and trials and all the ailments (yes, the Big C included) those you have left behind are heir to. Your wife, Lorna Tolentino, and your sons Ralphe, Renz and Mark Anthony should rest assured that you are in a better place now, smiling in triumph and not wincing in pain as you did, although secretly because you didn’t want anybody to see you in that state (being the invincible action superstar that you will forever be), during the two years that you struggled against what ailed your peri-ampullary (that word has become all-too-familiar to the public now).
As I said, you put up a good fight and you won the battle.
They say that old soldiers never die, they just fade away. Icons like you neither die nor fade away, they simply rise to a higher level, riding on horseback victorious just like they do in the ending of their films which ensure their immortality. On the screen, Daboy, you will forever be the dashing hero.
Everybody has said everything good that could be said about you; the praises have been showered over you; and what else is there to say?
At 56, you were too young to go, all right. There were a lot more things you wanted to do. But then, the Great Decision-Maker Up There must have something else for you to do, not down here but Up There.
Until the very last minute, you never lost your sense of humor. Remember what you were saying that, like Dolphy and Pres. Joseph “Erap” Estrada, you should have bought memorial lots for yourself, aside from just houses and lots, so that you could have lived longer.
You’re wrong, Daboy. What matters is not how long one lives but how well one lives. You have lived a full, fruitful life, as an actor and as a private person, and, more than your acting awards, you have left a beautiful legacy and that’s your being a good man. That’s how we will all remember you for — a good man.
You will be in good company where you’re going. Come to think of it, the gang’s all there and you can do a potential multi-episode blockbuster with FPJ as co-star; with Chat Silayan as your leading lady; either Charito Solis or Rita Gomez as your mother; Julie Vega as your sister; with Jay Ilagan, Dindo Fernando and Ace Vergel as co-stars, plus Ramon Zamora as sidekick; and Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Lamberto Avellana and Gerry de Leon as director. Why not? Heaven can’t wait.
As a parting shot, I’m reprinting the poem titled Safely Home (author anonymous) sent to me by Rio Diaz (who also fought the Big C with head held high, chin up):
I am now at home in heaven;
All’s so happy, all so bright!
There is perfect joy and beauty
In this everlasting light.
All the pain and grief are over,
Every restless tossing past;
I am now at peace forever,
Safely home in heaven at last.
Did you wonder I so calmly
Trod the Valley of the Shade?
Oh! But Jesus’ love illuminated
Every dark and fearful glade.
And He came Himself to meet me
In that way so hard to tread;
And with Jesus’ arm to lean on,
Could I have one doubt or dread?
Then you must not grieve so sorely,
For I love you dearly still;
Try to look beyond earth’s shadows,
Pray to trust our Father’s will.
There is work still waiting for you,
So you must not idle stand;
Do your work while life remaineth —
You shall rest in Jesus’ land.
When that work is all completed,
He will gently call you home;
Oh, the rapture of the meeting!
Oh, the joy to see you come!
Yes, Daboy, you are safely home!
As always,
— RICKY
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