‘Meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends’
High school class reunions and homecomings serve as important milestones in the moving train of life. These are occasions for meeting friends from younger years, refreshing memories, comparing notes, and promising to get together anew.
“Let’s meet more often in pizza parlors, not in funeral parlors,” was the somber message in one off-beat gettogether after visiting the wake over ashes of a classmate who had passed away when we were just at the age-50 mark. Previously, we met to mark our silver jubilee year in 1994, as we were high school graduates of Don Bosco Makati in 1969. We had just crossed the 40-year-old mark then. Our sons and daughters were still in high school.
Gathering for our golden jubilee homecoming was a major production. Thanks to Facebook and other social media platforms, we were able to loop in a big number of classmates. On the eve of the school-sponsored homecoming, we held our own reunion dinner so we could have more face time and tighter bonding among ourselves. That was in January 2019.
Our reunion in 2020 was equally spirited, even if it gathered a smaller cohort. Barely a month later the Covid-19 lockdown began — and we did not get to see each other face-to-face again until September 2022 when a Us-based doctor-classmate invited us to a dinner at his home. In between, we had Zoom meetings — held during weekends, Sunday morning in Manila and Saturday night in North America for our US- and Canada-based classmates.
The day after Christmas in 2021, while having coffee before going to mass, I received a call from a high school classmate. One of our classmates died last night, he said, and that was the night of Christmas Day, 2021. This All Souls Day column is dedicated to the memory of Roberto ‘Obet’ Lumba, my cherished friend from grade school and high school — and through college, too.
Obet, or Robert, or Bob, as he was called by friends from other circles, was the prime mover who ensured bonding and connectivity among us ‘69ers, the collective name we chose to recall our year of graduation from high school and passage into university life. We were among those from Don Bosco who were admitted to the University of the Philippines in Diliman and as every UP alumnus knows, one’s identity is coterminous with one’s student number.
It wasn’t until 1979 when our paths crossed anew. We also worked briefly together in Pantranco North Express, Inc. in the early eighties when it was the biggest bus company in Luzon, its operations financed by Philippine National Bank’s investment arm. He headed Pantranco Tours, a job to which he was well-suited, as he had been an experienced tour manager. He introduced me to Pantranco’s senior executives, and I was hired to head its management services division, then its head office operations, too, on a concurrent basis.
From then on, our career pathways diverged, although we kept in touch regularly, and met at school reunions and occasional golf games. I could still recall Friday, the 13th of March, 2020. We played golf in the morning through lunch on what turned out to be the last day of normal life, as we knew it then. On the evening news, it was announced that a Luzon-wide expanded community quarantine would be declared in efforts to stem the tide of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2020 and 2021, our high school batch met on Zoom at least once a month to check how we were faring during the lockdown. Our last conversation was on Monday, December 20, 2021 during our class’ Zoom meeting. On the evening of the following day, he was brought to a nearby hospital after suffering an apparent stroke.
He underwent surgery and was confined in intensive care. On the evening of Christmas day, he passed on to eternity.
During the nine-day Zoom novena for his repose, I realized the heights he had achieved as an entrepreneur. Together with another high school classmate, he previously ran distribution operations for a certain line of ethical drugs, following legislation that propelled the growth of generic medicine.
Among those who honored him were his co-workers in Apothek, a pharmaceutical distributor for foreign and local drug manufacturing firms that sells directly to leading hospitals – a venture that he embarked upon in the mid-nineties with Norman Espina, one of our high school classmates. His coworkers recalled his highly personalized style of leading. He allowed his people to pursue their own initiatives and use their creativity to deal with day-to-day challenges. When they erred, he gave them the opportunity to use the lessons learned from miscues to improve themselves.
Beyond business enterprise, Bob endeared himself to friends by being the ultimate travel and food guide. He and wife Monica (they met in UP Manila in the pre-martial law period) were prized companions as they animated each journey with their trademark cheer and mirth. As the eldest, he was Kuya to his younger siblings whose children regarded him as the quintessential paterfamilias.
Our last conversation was on Monday, December 20, 2021 during our class’ Zoom meeting. On the evening of the following day, he was brought to a nearby hospital after suffering an apparent stroke. He underwent surgery and was confined in intensive care. On the evening of Christmas day, he passed on to eternity.
As I honor his memory today, I am reminded of a line from Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull: “Don’t be dismayed by goodbyes. Farewell is necessary so we can say hello again — and meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”
‘Don’t be dismayed by goodbyes. Farewell is necessary so we can say hello again — and meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.’ – Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull