2mo • 3 months ago

ENJOY HEAVEN, PAPA!

This is the eulogy I delivered during the interment mass for my papa on June 1, 2024 in La Union.

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Cesar Perez Rimando was born two years before World War 2 in a fertile valley at the bank of the river called Naguilian. His father was a school teacher and his mom a trader of commodities, including tobacco, which was plenty in this province of La Union. Papa was the third in the family of 10, but a sister didn’t survive the war.

Life was tough, but his parents were tougher. Papa and his siblings were brought up hardworking, responsible, ethical. They witnessed how their parents prioritized family, a trait papa would emulate, too.

Papa earned his BS Chemical Engineering degree from Mapua University in capital Manila. He wrote jokes and short stories that earned him P200 apiece, supplementing his meager allowance. He had one pair of shoes all throughout university years.

He returned to his hometown in La Union where he met Editha Munar who was about to enter the convent. Smitten, he convinced the Mother Superior to give him a chance. She will be the mother of my children, he said. They married 56 years ago.

I’m my parents’ middle child. They had four. I’m a papa’s girl. I looked up to him as my hero. He would rushed me to the ER when asthma attacked and the 5-year-old me couldn’t breathe. When bullies made fun of my name — which combines his Cesar and mama’s Editha, thus Ceditha — he composed nicknames for us inspired by the musical scales: Dodo, Yeye, Mimi. I couldn’t be Fafa or Soso, so I became Lala. His problem-solving skills show off his ingenuity and wisdom.

His parenting skills were prudent, deliberate, informed. One of his love languages as a parent was time. After work, he stayed up as long as it took to potty train all of us. He brought us to regular family gatherings, excursions to the mountains, the beach, this barrio there, this relative here, this city there, this resort here. We had many magic moments because he was present.

He was a man of few words. I knew when he was mad because a simple stern stare from him left me shaking in fear. Whenever I walked along the aisle with him to receive academic honors, his pride oozed. To have those moments again and again, I made sure I did well in school year after year.

As he moved up the corporate ladder, and work at the Bacnotan plant and Phinma office in Manila became more demanding, his next love language was books. He was a reader. Books expanded his world and diversified his perspectives. He peppered our house with the latest encyclopedia series, the best collections of classic and modern stories. I don’t know how he could afford a Readers Digest and National Geographic subscriptions, but I knew learning was a priority, so he gave us a print-rich environment.

Last Thursday evening, his former peers and co-workers gathered to share tidbits about his managerial style. One that stood out was how he would write them notes. “You did very well.” “Keep going.” “You can do better.” He had heaps of paper work to attend to, but he found time to still read books, newspapers, magazines, anything that would feed his curiosity about the world, life, relationships, work.

They also shared how particular he was about cleanliness and discipline. Engineers made sure their assigned sites have been dusted off before he made his morning rounds. Or else they would get their deserved, but fatherly scolding. He knew the workers were not mere labor inputs. He engaged them in conversations about family. When he retired, even the employees he fired held him in high regard. One of them said he will miss carrying papa and his wheelchair up to the venue of frequent reunions.

One of papa’s motto was this: “The greatest gift a man can do for his children is to love their mother.” And, oh, how he loved our mother. He brought her along in his work travels. To stave off temptation, he said. One wife, one problem. Two wives, two problems.

Their marriage was not perfect, but they worked on it. When I was going thru their old documents, I noticed that attended marriage retreats every year, and went to regular spiritual checkups. God was at the center of their union. Mama, the ex-almost nun, made sure of that, and papa lived it.

When mama broke her ankle, he called us non-stop to make sure she received the best medical attention. When sleeping together got too tough, and we suggested they have separate beds, he agreed, but only on MWF, he said. Her presence comforts him. When they were lying next to each other, he would turn to her and whisper, “I love you.”

He loved to chat, but that was taken away from him when a vocal chord froze after a thyroid operation. He loved to read, but that was slowly taken away when a brain surgery caused his eye nerves to deteriorate. He loved to explore, but that was slowly taken away from him when his knee arthritis kept him wheelchair-bound.

What was not taken away from him was his will to live a purposeful life. Despite or because of these physical limitations, he summoned discipline and willpower to attend speech and physical therapy sessions. He used magnifying glass to continue reading. He moved to Youtube and Spotify when reading text got too arduous.

Even in many, many medical battles, he found meaning in his suffering. Sacrifice for good, he would say. He summoned faith muscles, built up through the many ups and downs, to endure several operations, radiation therapies, even an intubation. He still had daughters to marry off, and a wife who look up to him for wisdom.

From April 2 until May 24, 2024 at the hospital, and his last days at home, he did not give up until we assured him that it’s ok to rest. That his daughters and son are ok. That we will take care of mama for him.

I have been blessed with someone who modeled what is and how to be a gentleman, a hardworking and disciplined visionary, tough on the outside but soft inside, an engineer who loves a prose, a bookworm who gave me the genes of a writer, someone who showed me how to stay strong and keep the faith despite life-and-death situations—literally.

Enjoy dancing and prancing and singing with the Lord up there in Heaven, papa. Thank you for showing me how to grow my faith muscle.

I love you, my hero.