Dear Uncle Bert

Your grandchildren, numbering over 20 now, consider you a hero. They were all inconsolable when you were rushed to the hospital—where you breathed your last less than 72 hours later.  

I consider you a hero, too, plus more. 

You were one of 75,000 Filipino, American, and Chinese prisoners of war, who were hauled and dehumanized by the enemy, forcibly marched for five to six days with no food nor a single sip of water in the WW2 Bataan Death March in 1942. You lived to tell us the gruesome, albeit miraculous, story.

“God,” you'd say over and over again, “never left my side.”

And so God was with you for 92 grace-packed years.

In some of those years, I was privileged to celebrate most of my New Years with you in our clan reunion.

In some of those years, I had been able to tell you my own little stories, which paled in comparison with yours, but you listened anyway.

In some of those years, I saw you play a no mean chess game with nephews and emerging the champion.

In some of those years, you were a frequent guest (more frequent than I could manage to go home) of my parents in the province, your hometown. You'd take public transportation from Manila just to be there to pay your land taxes, on Halloween, and on any other occasion that made you re-live your childhood.

In some of those years, I delighted at seeing you and my mom—your younger sister and fan—chat for hours and gush over Alvin Patrimonio's latest basketball game. You relished being the grandfather of undoubtedly the best basketball player of all time.

In some of those years, I witnessed how your six living children and their spouses loved and took care of you even if they already have children of their own.

In some of those years, I marveled at how a soft-spoken uncle would be so honored and cherished by noisy nieces and nephews.

In some of those years, you were widowed twice in a row—and had the rare privilege of marrying two of the most caring women I ever met.

In some of those years, you took a third wife, “Because I could be lonely,” you said. Now she, along with all of us, are in deep grief because you left us (not really too soon; God blessed you with an unusually long, healthy life) before we could celebrate the coming of 2011, in the clan reunion you so looked forward to since the last one.

Your two remaining sisters (out of nine siblings), both with fading or faded memories in the US, will never know you're gone—which is just as well. They are now gently cushioned from the gloom of missing you.

But because they share your faith, our faith in the one true Savior, Jesus, somewhere in a special part of Auntie Pure's and Auntie Pat's mind, they are confident, as I am, that you survived the Bataan Death March so your long life would be a powerful testimony of indestructible hope—to be a part of the Heaven Life March with all the angels forever.

Good-bye my hero, plus more. 

 
(Photo from Cyrene's FB profile page)