To-lits Hocson
DAR goes another one of us. A batchmate, Rafael (Lito) Hocson, made it on time for Todos los Santos. We were at his wake, followed by interment on the 9th day at the St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori chapel at Magallanes the other week.
The monicker “To-lits” stuck to him, a template given by another high school classmate (Ely, a failed copywriter, who transposed his own name into “Le-y”).
In welcoming nears and dears, Tolits’ bereaved widow Terseing mistakenly acknowledged the Eagles batch ’67. (She unintentionally made us three years younger. We are batch ’64 college, high school ’60, and mostly grade school ’56.) To-lits was also among those who continued to take the first MBM course, the precursor of what would be the AIM.
For better or for worse, To-Lits had 18 years of Jesuit formation. The only part he could not fill was passing the audition for the school glee club. Instead he was a member of the antithesis trio “D’ Sintunaads,” whom Dong overheard to be singing our song “their way.”
Fr. William Kreuz, SJ, said the memorial mass. (We have survived all our Jesuit mentors, except for Fr. Roque “Rock” Ferriols, SJ, who is at the Jesuit infirmary.)
Our perennial president Jojo Bunag and his wife Baby couldn’t come. They were both petitioning in Akita for their daughter Hazel, but included To-lits in the intention for safe passage to heaven’s gate. Oca’s shot of high blood caused him to miss the convocation. Our high school valedictorian Rant and his wife Livvy and Jun and Lita were there. So was Bodgie, Ernie, Jovic, Dong, and Ben. Others who were missed can be attributed to my amnesia or failing vision.
Like most endings, this departure was a happy one. And I envy To-lits two things:
First, that he was in the state of blessedness and received the last sacraments.
The other thing was how well his children, Elenita and Ramy. remember their dad. (I nudged my classmates at the pew, who confessed that they are also not confident how they are graded by theirs.)
To-lits did the right thing. Instead of the paeans of nears and dears, he had the foresight to write his testament – the truth, the whole truth, and as much truth as necessary to be told.
His son Ramy read To-lit’s brief three column testament of life lived to the full. It began with marrying his high school sweetheart Teresing, after graduation, his two children Eileen and Ramy and two grandchildren (Mio Garcia, a 5th grader, and Rafael Alejandro, a 2nd grader) – all of them Ateneans. Flashback to college with sidetrips to shady lanes, pedagogue at Ateneo Catethetical Instruction League, occasional stint as a sneaking mompo acolyte. First job took him to Cebu and Davao gravel airport... worked up the corporate ladder which exiled him to the boondocks (which laments why only two children), to poultry and whole hog business of the industry... later into prawns which linked with growers in Luzon and Mindanao and buyers in US, Japan, and Europe... and as top honcho opening the tuna plant at Sulawesi... then returning to ice cream and then oodles of noodles... before taking early retirement to try hobby at a third baby “for the fun of it.” Ending with nostalgia for Pink House billards and salute to school chums who nagpakopya and accomplices at M. H. del Pilar. El Faro and side streets off Dewey. He gave himself a grade of “not too innocent, but not too naughty.”
A declaration reminiscent of Fr. John Gordon’s ribbing of our 4-A class’ favorite prayer, “God, make me holy... but not yet.”
Ramy capped the reading of To-lits’ testament with a profession of his own – why, despite feet of clay, his hero stood tall. For this life so well lived, and notwithstanding his corny jokes, his daughter and his son both look up to him. Because of these, the dream lives on. FEEDBACK: