Gone too soon

He was one soft-spoken gentleman whose life continues to be resonant.

Honorio “Dong” Castro, 67, died of a ruptured aneurysm last April 4, after having collapsed suddenly 15 days earlier while giving a lecture at the Vicente Sotto Hospital in Cebu. An electrical engineer, Dong was demonstrating the use of a brand-new machine he had supplied to the hospital, the leading brain center in the Visayas, when he complained of a headache and then lost consciousness.

 His wife of almost 42 years Didit and their children Lester, Chuck and Denise, a pediatrician, flew immediately to Cebu to be by his side. We all thought it was just because of high blood pressure till the Cebu-based neurovascular surgeon Dr. Rey Villamor, one of the country’s best, called up Didit to ask for her consent to do emergency brain surgery on her beloved husband. Dong was athletic, did not smoke or drink alcohol. He was mild-mannered and kind.

Dong and Didit, college sweethearts from the University of Santo Tomas, had just come from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where they renewed their wedding vows in Cana. When they returned, they were the picture of wedded bliss, and were on a spiritual high.

In hindsight, Didit now remembers one thing she found peculiar during the renewal of their vows. When she told Dong lovingly she wished they would make it to their 50th, “He didn’t answer.” He just smiled.

Dong and Didit met in the UST singing group “Crowning Experience.” He was taking up Electronics and Communications Engineering and she, Pharmacy. He was a varsity football player, and became MVP twice. Didit was a campus beauty, and was once mistaken for Dina Bonnevie by Sen. Loren Legarda.

In a sense, Dong, till his last breath, was making it easy for Didit. When he collapsed, it happened in a hospital at that. Curiously, too, it was a Cebu-based travel agency that organized their Holy Land pilgrimage and the pilgrimage’s spiritual director is Cebuano, Fr. Ricky Ordoñez. Many pilgrims in their group are Cebuanos. So when tragedy struck in Cebu, the Castros were never alone. When the end was near, Father Ordoñez administered extreme unction on Dong.

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Dong was an honorable man, just like his real name “Honorio.” His oldest sibling “Kuya Rody,” a former army pilot, recalled in his eulogy: “Though the youngest,  Dong was always there and a part of us; especially in major events like the weddings of my three children. He was the ‘go-to’ person. He showed his love and care for our dad who was in the ICU for two years and our mom, who was comatose for one year. He took care of our sibling Deng and took care of me, his kuya. He was a 24/7 companion for me whenever I was in Manila. He was more concerned about my health and well-being, making sure I was well taken care of. He was taking care of us when we should have been taking care of him.”     

Dong and Didit were my parents’ neighbors in Las Piñas from 1979 to just a couple of years ago, when they moved to Alabang. And though my sisters Mae, Geraldine and Valerie and I are much older than their children, we are very close to them.

My sister Geraldine wrote this tribute to Dong that wove beautifully and poignantly the sadness and the shock we all felt at his passing, and the admiration we all had for him, but never quite expressed. “Dong Castro was the type of person whom you would think would live forever — to take care of the world, his family and friends. Perhaps because I saw him this way, I never thought of telling him, how much I admired him and that he was a cut above the rest. An engineer and a scientist, he had a technical mind, the temperament of a professor and the reliability of Superman. He gave the moon and the stars to his wife, Didit, kids Lester, Chuckie, Denise, and grandkids Rocio and Lauren. Even his friends, such as my family, had a share of his abundant light. So many tributes to you, Dong, are left unsaid, because you left too soon. I am not easy to impress, but you are a cut above the rest.”

(From left) Dong and Didit Castro, Lester, Lauren and Therese Castro, Dr. Denise Castro and niece Rocio with Chuck and Roan Castro.

For his part, Dong’s second son Chuckie said, “Thinking back, I’d like to say thank you for preparing us for this most difficult time in our lives. Thank you, Dad, for Mom. Without her, we would not be here today. You both were perfect for each other. And we promise you that the void left by your loss will not mean emptiness for Mom and our family. We will be there for Mom, just as you were when we needed someone to be there for us. Dad loved Mom so much.”

Chuck also thanked his dad for his siblings: “Thank you, Dad, for Kuya Lester. You molded him, after all, to be the do-it-all Swiss Army knife in the family. The person who thinks critically just like you…You never told him to be like you. But he ended up wanting to be like you.”

He thanked his dad for his youngest sister, Denise. “During our time in the hospital, it was Denise who stood out as the calming presence every time your doctor updated us on what was happening…Thanks for making her strong as well because it was difficult for her to hide her pain because she knew the real situation.”

Chuck also thanked his father for making him (Chuck) strong and resilient, “able to stand in front of your loved ones, and bare all that we felt deep inside.”

“You were a man of few words, but those few words always resonated above us. You dedicated your life to service. Service to your family. Service to your friends. Service as a career. I know a lot of people here have their own stories to share about how you touched their lives through acts of service. ‘Sila muna, bago ako’ was your motto in life.”

I remember I once asked Denise one important thing her father taught her about “troubleshooting.” And Denise told me that whenever things didn’t work, her father would tell her to look first at the power source. Maybe the plug was loose, the cable entangled, the USB not firmly in place. And voila! New life and light would flow into the gadget. I’ve found myself many times applying this “Dong technique” when my gadgets didn’t light up.

Goodbye, Dong. You were the source of light and power to your family. But you prepared your family for the times when things would get disconnected and would not work, when the light would flicker, when the music would stop playing.

By God’s grace your loved ones will continue to shine even when their source of light is gone.

Gone too soon.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.)