All my friends are either dead or deaf!” Chitang Guerrero Nakpil, who turned 95 this month, was heard to have lamented in typical dark humor.
Anyone who lives long enough will have to face that situation at some point. Although I am myself losing one classmate at a time and not a few are dropping out of the social scene for medical reasons, I’m hardly in danger of being the last man standing.
Chitang was lucky to have been surrounded by many younger friends and colleagues even before her own contemporaries began going. She basked in the company of younger writers, artists and journalists who were naturally drawn to her.
Vergel and I, in fact, would occasionally join the group’s Wednesday lunches at Havana, originally owned by her long-gone friend, Larry Cruz. She was always a strong presence at the lunches, providing rich context and irreverent humor to many stories.
But when she turned 90, she started coming less and less often. The Wednesday lunches go on without her, the last one to celebrate her 95th. We continue to get updates on her condition from her children.
Positive attitude
Recently, Vergel and I, who have a soft spot for older people, met 89-year-old Antonio Acosta Pastor. Like Chitang, he was beginning to lose many of his contemporaries. His attitude was refreshingly positive as he told his story.
One day he received a call from a friend’s wife, asking him to come and visit because her husband didn’t want to go out anymore, at first out of the house and now out of their bedroom. She was concerned because she could hear him talking alone, presumably to the walls. Tony asked her teasingly what was the problem with that.
“’Ala naman,” she answered in her Batangas accent. “Mukhang ngang nagkakaigui sila.” (In fact, they seem getting along fine).
Still another call came from another friend’s wife, telling him about the deteriorating state of her husband’s memory—“Malilimutin na ang kumpadre mo!”—and warning that she thought it best he miss the boys’ regular lunches and just stay home.
Once, he called out to her from the middle of the stairs, she recalled, and when she got there he didn’t seem to know whether he was on his way up or down.
Funny and sad
Tony knew he couldn’t put things back to how they used to be. The few who did manage to come to their lunches would come a day early or a week later. It was funny and yet sad but somehow he found a logical and happy solution.
He opened his heart and mind to making new friends where he could find them. He found a younger senior group when a friend of a friend asked him to join them at the Landmark food court whenever he could for merienda or coffee. He also found us.
Tony’s interests are many and varied, and so, he has found out, are possibilities of him finding new friends. He is a lawyer, a tenor and a concert pianist, among other things. Our own friendship was born out of Vergel’s and Tony’s love of music.
It all began one Sunday afternoon at Rockwell’s Power Plant. Vergel noticed an older man being led toward the piano by another, urging him to play. I had just left to go to the ladies’ room. When I came back Vergel stood transfixed, listening intently, as the older man played Mozart.
Quite an aficionado, Vergel couldn’t leave until after another and final piece, a Chopin this time. Vergel and I didn’t even know his name.
Serendipitous night
The friendship was sealed one serendipitous night. Vergel and I attended the young tenor Arthur Espiritu’s concert with older, Romanian-born soprano Nelly Miricioiu at the Ayala Museum. By special consideration of one of the evening’s hosts, our tickets were upgraded to a privileged row and I found myself seated between Vergel and Tony, who came with siblings and their wives and friends—10 in all.
When soprano Fides Asensio stopped by to say hello to Tony, Vergel recognized him as the piano man at Rockwell and, catching the short exchange between them, we learned they were once singing partners in concerts and zarzuelas of the past.
Vergel took the first opportunity to tell him about Rockwell. Tony seemed genuinely touched and promptly gave him his name card. He also took down our home address and promised to send us a CD of his. In a few days, it arrived and we have been enjoying listening to it in the car ever since.
Tony contacted Vergel again to invite us to listen to him sing and play at Sunshine Place, a building that offers varied activities for seniors, from zumba to mah-jongg. Unfortunately we couldn’t make it. He invited us again—this time he asked us to choose the date ourselves and to bring friends to lunch at their Acosta-Pastor ancestral home in Batangas City.
That chance we grabbed, and everyone I called was just excited to go.
He gave us a personal tour of the house and shared poignant and humorous stories of his and his family’s incredibly blessed life. He served us a lunch that took me back to Sundays at my grandparents’ home, from the furniture to the menu of traditional pochero with roasted and mashed eggplant piquant sauce, among other dishes; and for dessert—minatamis na saba with gata and leche flan.
We felt honored to lunch at the original table for 12 where Tony’s parents had their meals with their 10 children. Tony now sat at the head of the table; back then, he, being third-born, sat somewhere in the middle, a secure place to be when food was served according to seniority. It was the same at my Lola’s.
He has invited us back for his hometown fiesta this month but we are not inclined to join the 200 or more guests. We look forward to seeing him instead when he drops by again at Rockwell to play the piano; perhaps we could take him to dinner afterward.
Bachelor by choice
A happy man by all indications, Tony has lived a full life, he says. He credits his youthful looks and vigor to being a bachelor by choice.
He has everything he needs and loves, his music and his six pianos, one in his bedroom. They are his mistresses, he says, each one demanding special care and attention. And he indulges them, especially the one in the living room, which he played for us, the Austrian-made Bosendorfer, the Rolls Royce of pianos, its bright, clean tones even my untrained ears recognize to be from out of this world. He has Steinways, too.
Like his forebears, Tony is deeply religious, and, therefore, a very grateful and generous man as seen in his many philanthropies. “It’s payback time,” he says. “If I made you happy, you made me happy, too. After all, you laughed at my jokes, and listened to me play.”
That Wednesday, he gave us something to remember and a friendship to treasure for a lifetime.