The Reason I Keep Hosting Friends

This past 2 weeks I had the privilege of meeting two friends from my childhood. The first is Relly Salle, now a colonel in the AFP Technical Services; and the second, Lino Corcuera, a long-time resident of Canada for more than 30 years.

Relly and I sat for about 3 hours over a cup of coffee, reminiscing on days past. We talked a lot about Marden Iglesias, now a successful professional in the fashion circuits of New York, because the three of us grew up together in Mandaluyong at a time when houses were few and far apart, and the streets were not so congested. We talked of the demise of family. We talked about the siblings we remember. Relly can’t forget how 3 kids, (my brother Lope, Relly and me) took a bus all the way to Araneta Coliseum to watch Harlem Globetrotters.

Of course Relly and I talked about the twists and turns that our lives took: how he made a remarkable recovery from a recent heart by-pass, and now he’s back to playing tennis and doing jogs. It was a picture of him in Facebook playing tennis that first caught my attention. I had a mistaken recollection that he wore a leg brace (for polio) as a kid. I was wrong because it was his kid sister who did, and not him. Relly still stays in the multi-door apartment that they own on Tanglaw street whenever he’s in Manila because his assignments bring him to various parts of the country. How he remained single after all these years is a topic for another coffee table talk and another blog.

Lino on the otherhand, stayed with me for 2 weeks, first in my Mandaluyong residence, then in Sorsogon. We drove the south road for 11 hours to get there so this gave us a lot of time to talk. Lino visited the country for 2 reasons: (1) to check out the properties of a Chinoy real estate developer here which he intends to sell in Canada; and (2) to get a life, after nursing a broken heart out of a recent separation.

Lino observed how I spend my 24 hours of each day. It was too hectic for him I think, because he begged off from going with me on some days, preferring to stay in the den that my friend George (Fernandez, from Camarillo, CA) had used before him. There he browsed the internet, taking care of his financial transactions, or sleeping, as he adjusted his body clock. Lino experienced 2 days of typhoon, Bicol style.

In these parts, storm intensity go to as high as signal no.4, and as recent as 5 years ago, 2 typhoons, Milenyo and Reming, both signal no.4, came within a month of each other. It devastated people’s psyche to have to rebuild one’s life from utter ruins, only to have it ravaged a second time a month after. This happened to Sorsogon. It was far worse in Albay, a province an hour’s drive away. There they sustained almost 3000 dead bodies, many unrecovered because they got buried in lahar that the majestic Mayon volcano spewed out.

Fortunately, we had good weather for most of the week so Lino joined me for most of my daily 5 AM road runs. My staff took him on islands tours to dive the marine sanctuaries. But he hosted a luau for our school’s student assistants, now called the academic grantees of the Speed Center for Leadership (SCL). He was impressed by how they worked to shut down and secure the school at the height of the typhoon.

I remember Lino as probably the most hard-working kid in our neighborhood. As a teenager, he helped an elder sister run a furniture shop. Perhaps he saw a piece of himself in the SCL grantees that we help send to school because when he addressed them in one Sorsogon Bay Cruises dinner, he gave such an inspiring talk, they were so moved with emotion.

In any case, this is the reason I keep hosting friends who come over. It gives me a chance to slow down from my daily routine as I join my friends in the daily activities that my staff help put up. This gives me some time to step back and get a better perspective of life and the appreciation I ought to give it. Few things give better pleasure than looking back on your life journey with another person who was part of a specific point of your timeline. You should consider trying it sometime.

To all my friends, if you think you still cannot find the space nor time to visit, follow Nike’s advice: Just Do It. I got you covered.