A Eulogy

Michael Belonio announced in Facebook that he is celebrating his 10th year in the world of a accounting. I shared with him the comment my boss made when I celebrated my 6th year anniversary with Unilever. He said, " Congratulations on your longest relationship"

This made me remember my late boss, Tony.  I wish to share the my eulogy, which I wrote and delivered 4 years ago.

WARNING: this is quite sad...

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Good Evening.

I am L and I am Tony’s Martha.

For those of you from Tony’s church...I’m sure you know why.

I worry a lot and Tony always told me not to worry because God loves me and God will make things better. And when he said this, I felt safer. 

I worked with Tony for 4 years. It was like going University but only having 2 classmates. It’s amazing how Mico, Tony and I managed to form a family during that span of time. We didn't  even realize it.

I saw Tony everyday. He sat across me and only a translucent glass separated us. I covered it so that I won’t get to see his face for 10 hrs a day/ 5 days a week.

What I would give now to see it again...

For those of you who got to work with us...you know what a close and odd tandem we were. We were the exact opposite of each other.

He was fat and tall. I’m thin and small.
He was a gentleman and I am a palengkera.He shopped for branded stuff. I love ukay-ukay and  I made habit of bragging about my finds. 

One day, I came to work wearing a spanking new dress from Bangkok. Tony said… “ I like your dress. Is that from Ukay-ukay?” I gave him a really cold stare

Tony and I also lived in the same building. I am on the 12^th floor and he was on the 37^th. As if It wasn’t enough that we see each other at work di ba? We had to live in the same building pa

One time... he wanted to eat Paksiw na isda but he didn’t have pots and pans . I told him, he can cook in my house. He was so excited. He came with Fish, Gulay and he cooked. We didn't go to work that day. It was okay... he was my boss. How often can one say, "I slacked off with my boss"?

He seemed to really like his Paksiw na Isda so I pretended to really like it as well. I’m from Iloilo and we call that Pinamalhan. We only cook this dish if the fish is not fresh. It’s a sad ulam for me. But he enjoyed it... so we ate while watching a Jon Lloyd and Sara G movie. 

Yes, I made Tony watched jeje movies. I'm jeje.  In fair, He laughed so hard at the cheesy lines. I wondered if he used some on Cathy.

You know…I believed everything Tony said. When he said that he used to be ill and  that God healed him, I believed him. When he shared the symptoms but told me that "All those are now gone"...I believed him.

And I didn’t worry. Afterall, everything was always in past tense.

Perhaps I should have worried more, Perhaps I should have not believed him...

....In the same respect that I shouldn’t have believed him when he said that food cooked in a microwave would glow in the dark.

Once, we had lunch and he said he doesn’t want to heat his food in our office microwave because of the radiation. To prove his point, he explained the effect of radiation on molecules. If the radiation is strong DAW it would make molecules move so fast to the point that they would create heat and make the food glow.

So I heated my food, covered it with my hands and I said, "Tony wala naman e!" He said, "Maliwanag  pa kasi." So I went home by 6 pm but the in Singapore, the sun sets around 7:30 pm. I put my food in the microwave again, heated it and went inside my dark storage room and waited for the food to glow. It didn’t so I called him.

He said, "Hoy, Stop playing with your food!" Then he called Hedda and they laughed about it. MEAN!

The next day I glared at him.

4 years is a long time. You get to know someone really well.

Tony always made a good impression. He was handsome, eloquent.

Gosh, my ilonggo friends all said,"Bawww ka gwapo guid. Daw artista." And my mom even told him with her trademark ilonggo accent, "Ang gwapo mo, bakit di ka nalang mag artista."

But for me and Mico, we were stuck with him even during his bad days. But we found ourselves still loving him nevertheless. That’s when we realized that ARE more than workmates. We are friends. 

But you should have seen me and Tony fight. Our fights were as highschool as it could get. I’d ignore him for days . He’d be super taray. There were a lot of "Let me finish!" during discussions But we would just naturally patch things up. ALWAYS.

Tony is probably the only guy who put up with my "Afternoon Tea- Lets's-Pretend-To Be-Royalty" fascination.

When we were in Capetown, he tried bribing the concierge of Mt. Nelson to get us seats. We didn’t get it but I saw how much he tried. Then, he got me my first Wedgwood teaset which made my then- boyfriend's gift looked pitiful compared to his.

 Tony also made it his mission to correct my pronunciation of the explosive T. So I always made an effort to do that when I was with him. Note that it was an effort for me. But for Tony it sounded effortless and crisp. We would hear him answer the phone with a “Hello This is Tony How can I help you?" 

Mico and I decided to call him Tony the Tiger behind his back. Bad!

The Bembol and Bimbol Roco was also a long debate. I won’t get into that.

You have no idea how much I miss Tony now. I do not know go back to work, knowing I’d never see him again.

Tony also ways pushed me to be the best. Sometimes in the process, he made me cry.

One time he asked me to put the packaging pictures side by side for Carl. I did exactly that and he said, "This is not the work of a manager. This is something a brand assistant would produce." I got really mad and cried.

 Now I know why he did that. He was preparing me. When he was in the hospital, we had to do a presentation for a WL6 and we did a great job.

Even during the last moments of his life, when he was in the hospital. He thought of me and mico. Finding us new teams, perhaps worrying what would happen to us when he’s gone.

I’m happy to hear from Cathy and Pastor Joseph that Tony was proud of me. This means the world to me.

I did a video montage for him, which I will share with you.

I hope this presentation is much better compared to that packaging presentation I did and I hope I continue to make him proud.

Tony, I still can not believe all the things that are happening now.

I miss you terribly.

No goodbyes.

L

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PS.

Reading this is still overwhelming. I can't believe it has been gone for 4 years now.

Tony passed away in his 30s... 

I can't believe I'm in my 30s too...