For Erma
For many years, this space belonged to the writer and editor Erma M. Cuizon. Last year, about two weeks before Independence Day, she asked for some time off from writing the SunStar Essay, as it was called then. She had felt some chest palpitations and, a few months shy of her 80th birthday, wanted to heed a doctor’s advice to free herself of some stressors.
Stressors, now there’s a word Ma’am Erma probably would not have liked. Had the word found itself in an issue of this paper while she reviewed it, she would have photocopied the offending page, marked it up, and left the note on my desk. This was our routine for the last 10 years. Of course, Ma’am Erma wasn’t the only person who pointed out mistakes that had slipped past our editors’ gatekeeping and into print. But she was, easily, the kindest.
Whenever I questioned one of her notes, pointing out a change in the rules of usage or sometimes grumbling about an overuse of commas, she would pat my arm and smile. Sometimes, she would tap an audit note with a finger, raise an eyebrow at me, but say nothing. She also liked to show me mistakes that other publications had made, but never with any scorn. She never argued. It was one of those traits of hers that reminded me of a favorite aunt, a retired music teacher who never loses her poise nor temper, and who is so gracious that her idea of a goodbye is a brief but eloquent prayer for “traveling mercies.”
I can’t recall ever praying with EMC, although I wouldn’t be surprised if she had prayed for patience ( and heaps of it) while doing her post- publication audits. Yet even then her disappointment was measured. She never wrote nor said anything hurtful, although some of our errors and quirks ( like the recent decision to stop italicizing Bisaya words, after years of treating these like a foreign language) may have irritated her. I only knew she was near the end of her saintly reserves of patience when EMC left a pair of exclamation points in red ink beside the worst mistakes. I am going to miss those notes of hers.
When she asked last year for a break from this space, I believed it would be temporary. She had not seemed particularly worried and, as always, she had a project or two she was working on. So I agreed to hold her place, in part because she had twice asked me to write something for an anthology project of hers, and both times, I had declined. She could turn an everyday occurrence, like a cab ride or a half- hour spent talking with a stranger while waiting in line at the pharmacy, into an essay. I was still trying to learn. I always thought EMC would claim this space back.
The difficult thing about writing about the recent death of an editor or a writer you admire is that you know you’ll miss the mark. That you’ll probably come up with something trite, because you haven’t had the time or the grit to wrest some meaning out of the miserable event. So you mine your memories for something that makes some sense. Over the years, EMC had talked to me about books, magazines, and the joys and vexations of writers ( and writing). I have lost count of just how many of these conversations have taken place. One day, without any warning or provocation, she told me one of her life’s few regrets. I couldn’t think of anything honest to say. And then she told me about a funny typo she’d seen ( not in this paper), chuckled, patted me on the arm, and gently turned away.