When Art messaged me that Leah, my sweet Leah, passed away last March 25, 2013, I couldn’t quite believe it. Just a few weeks ago, we were messaging each other back and forth, back and forth. As we normally do. Surely, he meant someone else. I waited for confirmation, I asked Art to please make sure that this news is true. Meanwhile, I checked my FB messages to Leah. True enough, the last message I sent which she “saw” was dated 13th of March. For the first time, the FB “seen” function did not annoy me. Leah always saw my messages and always had a ready reply. However brief, she answers back straightaway. I sent her two more messages after 13th of March and there was no reply. I had no clue.
Leah. She was fondly called Maruja within our little mountaineering tribe. Because she is Princess Maruja like that. Back in 1995, we formed our little wannabe mountaineering group. We called ourselves Akyat Pilipinas. We were four girls and four boys. They call me Lukring, Leah was Maruja, the late beloved Fe was Paraluman, Meouie was BQ for Backout Queen, Art was King Art/El Presidente, Nono was Prince, Jun Ponce was Baguio Beans and Nono’s little brother was simply JR. Each nickname had their own story. We were bonded together by the love of outdoors and adventure.
We hiked Mount Maculot and Mount Batulao as beginners. My Akyat buddies’ dominant memory of Leah was this…
Along the trail, Leah will somehow one way or the other get herself entangled into something. May it be a branch, a rock, even a shrub. One day, her hair got stuck into the branches of a shrub. So of course we had to stop and free her. Leah, always so charming, will say – “Leave me alone, guys. Please don’t worry about me.” – in that little girl sweet voice of hers. It’s like birds chirping. Literally. And the boys will break out into guffaws. Mind you, it’s not just laughter. Hagalpakan talaga. “But of course we cannot leave you, Maruja! Walang iwanan ano!” Ha. Leah loved the response. She is the life of our party. She always was.
Leah reminded me that it’s OK to be inane. To be whimsical. She had lots of whims and always follows them through. We worked at Siemens together. Fluent in German, she was the sweet voice of Siemens Inc’s switchboard. She doesn’t get bogged down by the daily grind. We saw movies together. Our favourite dinner was a one-piece McChicken with rice or a plate at Tokyo Tokyo.
I knew then that she was going to go far. Leah viewed the world in rose colored glasses. Absolutely. She married and settled in Switzerland. She has a beautiful daughter named Alicia.
Last year, I celebrated our friendship with this blog post. An excerpt:
A friend who now lives in Switzerland (a workmate from Siemens) is my kindred spirit. She’s whimsical. Light as a feather. She glides through life. I’ve never met anyone quite like her. Our exchanges are childlike. I call her buggerOne. She calls me buggerZero. Because I didn’t want to give her the upper hand, I declared myself Zero. She was OK with this. We’re buggers, you see. A message exchange with her always always makes me smile. She absolutely shines!
She responded in her unique writing style, it’s like hearing her talk. I quote verbatim: “wow… what can I say.. thank you from the bottom of my heart my dearest bugger0! I am proud and glad you’re my friend bugger0! cheers bugger0… that was really nicely written… start a book bugger0! your book/s should be all about whatever you are passionate about…travels, motherhood, cooking, friendship, facebook, your work as engineer? what else… boardgames?, reading… or maybe something fictional, magical, fantastic…endless possibilities bugger0…just do it! who knows…”
Leah is a great gift. So yes, I feel bereft losing her!
The three of us (Leah, Fe, myself) most memorably sang Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” at the top of our lungs at the peak of Mt Maculot. Much to the boys’ chagrin. We didn’t care. Fe, my other adventure friend left us prematurely when she was out adventuring in Batanes in the late 1990s. Now Leah joins Fe. Those two are partying in heaven. And I am left behind. Soon, my angels. I am not done with life yet. I have so much more to do and give. I love you both.
Bugger, I will keep you in my heart. I am a better person because of you. Soar high, fly away into heaven! You are no longer earthbound. And the world is a less cheerful place without you.
One last thing. I am so happy I told you I loved you straight from the heart.