In lieu of a reflection on the Feast of the Pentecost, I share with you the homily at the funeral Mass for Imelda Ongsiako Cojuangco. I hope this inspires you to also be a channel of grace that will help other people become good.
The renowned fashion designer Giorgio Armani once said, “Elegance is not about being noticed, it’s about being remembered.” This, all of us will agree, is an apt description of Tita Meldy. The enigma that is Tita Meldy is that she impresses with both.
She was noticed whenever she entered the room. She once said in an interview that her fashion style is “exaggerated,” a style suggested to her by the late National Artist for Fashion Design Ramon Valera.
The “exaggeration” most certainly attracted attention—her lively colors, the accessories, her jewelry, her total presence, all simply made her stand out.
This is true not only of her fashion style. Everything she did followed the same pattern, “exaggerations” that did not distort reality but brought out what is best, the good in anything that she did—for instance, the simple act of placing flowers at the altar, or the Cofradia annual First Communion and Procession, or her numerous charities.
This is what we remember. We notice her exaggerated style but what leaves a mark is her grace, her thoughtfulness, her generosity, her spirituality—and now that she is gone we realize how much all this has made us better persons.
Her larger-than-life public persona is really second only to her personal and thoughtful expressions of concern, gratitude and love for others regardless of their station in life.
Devotion
Last night after the Mass, I was talking with Mike Shimamoto who recalled that, when he first met Tita Meldy, she shared stories about her late husband, Uncle Monching. Mike thought, from the way she talked about him, that he had died just two or three years ago—only to be amazed to find out that he had passed away over 30 years ago.
She was deeply devoted to Uncle Monching in life and in death. From the time he passed away, her prayer was she would soon follow and be reunited with him.
Yet living in this hope of eternity did not detach Tita Meldy from the here and now.
This devotion to Uncle Monching was the same devotion with which she cared for her family, her friends, her works, her charities.
Her devotion to Our Blessed Mother and her love for the Lord became her core. Like the Blessed Mother in our Gospel today, Tita Meldy constantly prayed for so many people and for so many of their needs.
Her prayer was never perfunctory, it was always a deep and intense personal prayer from the heart. Her devotion to prayer was not so much pious as it was grounded. And like the Blessed Mother in the Gospel, this enabled her to tell those she prayed for to turn to the Lord and “do whatever he tells you.”
Her greatest gift to us is this devotion to Our Blessed Mother and her Son that was nurtured and deepened in her devotion to the Mass. As she also said in an interview, the Mass is the highlight of her day. Perhaps a highlight that is also the center of it all—what brings everything together and from which everything flows.
A week before she passed away, we teased Tita Meldy, as we often did, that all the apostles were martyred except for St. John who lived to a ripe old age because of his devotion to the Blessed Mother—and because of her same devotion she, too, will live long.
Then she closed her eyes and, as if in prayer, complained how long it had been before the Lord reunited her with her beloved Monching.
Tableau
On May 6, she hosted Mass and lunch on the 32nd death anniversary of Uncle Monching. On Sunday, Mother’s Day, she was also very cheerful and even played with some of her great-grandchildren. On Monday, Election Day, we had Mass at noon, and talked about and prayed for the elections. She was very concerned about the outcome, and later that day, she gathered all of her staff to pray the four mysteries of the Holy Rosary.
It almost seems like her final days were a tableau of her life: remembering her beloved Monching; doting on her family and being doted on; and praying for the country together with her own little community of prayer warriors.
The final days were a prayer best synthesized in our second reading:
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
Kept the faith
Indeed she has kept the faith and fought the good fight. We believe she received her reward of being reunited with her beloved Monching, Our Blessed Mother and her Son.
As St. Paul writes, the reward is given not only to her, but to all who have loved Christ’s appearing, to us who Tita Meldy has devotedly accompanied to Christ.
Dignified grace, restrained beauty of style, we will forever remember Tita Meldy as such a person who touched our life, and in her simplicity and consistency of love and grace brought out what is good in us and what is our best.
We thank her with this song from “Wicked,” and a song Patricia Cojuangco wrote on her Mother’s Day card for Tita Meldy. If I may, I will highlight a few lines to introduce the song:
“I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them…
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you…
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good.”
Mission accomplished, Tata. Because we knew you, we are better persons. We “have been changed for good.”
