realizations

my heart feels heavy since the other night. one of our wedding sponsors, ninong dante de guzma, passed away last thursday morning and a mutual friend informed me thru a text message about this sad news. jude and i attended his wake last night to pay our last respect and his beloved wife, ninang zeny, was there to tell us what happened. ninong dante is just 57 years old and his passing really took us all by surprise.

i really feel sad... and i also feel guilty. i think i have shared here before that visiting wedding sponsors, particularly those we don't meet everyday, is a tradition jude and i have started since three years ago. but we missed this tradition last time and we were not able to visit ninong dante and his family last holiday season. the last time we've seen each other was december of 2007 and i promised to visit him again in the coming months as he'll teach us how to garden. he maintain a nice little garden in their house in ayala alabang, and he wanted us to have the same for our own house. i made promises but i broke them. i never had the chance to see and talk with my favorite ninong during his last days. it's only now that i realized that the time spent for people dear to us shouldn't be taken for granted.

one more realization i had over ninong dante's almost-sudden death is we should value our health as early as now (i already know this before but it's only now that i had that toink). ninong dante suffered from cirrhosis of the liver last december which eventually led to to his death. he drinks occasionally... could even describe it as very seldom... but it was his obesity that caused the disease. he was a hearty eater during his younger days and only changed his diet and lifestyle when he was already in his 50's. i take his death as a turning point to us to improve more our diet and lifestyle. gawd, i don't exercise anymore! but i am proud to say that our diet is better now than before. i serve more fish and vegetables in our dining table--even iñigo eats ampalaya. =D i buy more fruits and less of the junks. but still, we need to improve more which could mean no fats and sugar if possible.

sighs... we will miss ninong dante... especially me. it was me who chose him to be one of our wedding sponsors. i worked under him (his day job then was more like of a hobby for him) during my DTI days and we spent nights coming up with export analysis and finishing a box of pizza. =) to say that he is generous and kind is an understatement. together with his UP fraternity brothers, he established a foundation in his hometown in nueva ecija to fund the education of poor but intelligent students. he has the traits which could earn him a seat in the politics for he is known to be as mr. congeniality and mr. diplomacy. but for me, it was like i found another father in the office (they'll refer him as "tatay mo" for me =)). he gave me constructive criticisms and sound advices. i also felt comfortable confiding to him my family and love problems (wehehe). that's how close he was to me.

***

do i have the reason now to believe in omens? it's also last night that i remembered about the earthware i accidentally broke last week. ninong dante gave that to us last time we visited him and his wife. i know it's an antique (he's an antique-collector), or probably a memorabilia he found during his last trip to new zealand.

i refused to believe in omens... but i definitely feel bad when i realized that one of ninong dante's gift to our family is now gone...

just like him.