Goodbye Uncle Bob

Goodbye Uncle Bob:  Just about a week after Alana and I got back to Colorado in December we got word from the LCP director Carmenia (Alana's supervisor) in Daro, Dumaguete, Negros Oriental, Philippines, that Elmar had passed away.  Especially sad news because Elmer was just shy of 30 years old.  He was the Student Activities Coordinator at LCP; tall (for a Filipino), commanding, big smile, gwapo (good looking), hard worker, caring.  We also heard that there was a history of heart disease in his family and his brother had also died young.

Kuya (Brother) Elmer

We had experienced a few funerals while we were here the first four months for training. They were more like parties and celebrations, just like Americans often pretend we want ours to be for our loved ones.  In one vein I never completely understood why people of faith center their lives around getting to heaven and when one of our loved ones gets to go . . . we are sad.  In another vein I do understand because I've experienced loss . . . and being an egocentric being . . . my sadness was more about me than anything else.  I digress.

 

The Filipino people have to act fast when one passed over "the big line" because in general few can afford to preserve the body as it begins to degrade inside of 6 hours from passing (yes kiddos, just like the banana peels).  The wake (like in America) starts as soon as they can get the deceased in a coffin and goes 24 hours a day for three days. Tradition doesn't allow the body to be left alone until the services and burial.  They call it "staying with the body."  For 24 hours a day lots of singing and praying goes, food, more singing, visiting of long lost relatives and friends, more praying, more food, more singing, it really does resemble a long party and is known as a high priority for letting people off of work if they need to travel to the wake and burial.

 

Yesterday, I got an email from Alana: "Things are crazy around here today.  Uncle Bob passed away."  Enough said for me.  Uncle Bob, a pillar of service for the LCP community, had been volunteering for free at LCP for 12 years.  He had become LCPs secret weapon.  I met him a few times; very nice man, a bit quiet, moved a bit awkwardly, probably someone who was considered geekish in high school, lean, mid-60s, glasses, very conservatively dressed, monotone energy, positive to talk to, and always wearing a toupee under his blue baseball cap (Unlce Bob lost his hair after receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer a few years ago).

Uncle Bob

They called him the "pied piper" because he always had children around following him to do some activity; swimming, festival, service, beach picnic, cultural event, going to the park, etc.  Just weeks earlier he and 7 boys, without hesitation, selflessly helped Alana move our stuff from our last host family's home to our new apartment.  I instantly liked being around him because all the children called him Uncle Bob and those were comforting two words for me to hear even though he wasn't half the man my father was(physically speaking, at 160 pounds :-)

 

Apparently he and his family have been sponsoring a few dozen young Filipino children at LCP to go to school for well over a decade.  Not only that, Uncle Bob, for 12 years now, has been living in Dumaguete and taking it upon himself to load up in his modest SUV with all the boys living in the LCP boarding house (12-15) every morning and get them to school then haul them back to LCP in the afternoon.  He would mysteriously show up with supplies when LCP staff had been talking about some project they wanted to do with the children.  He could be counted on to watch, haul, support, tutor, read to, feed, or process with any group of children at LCP.

 

Uncle Bob would set up a half dozen grade appropriate math problems for the boys and girls living in LCP facilities every school day and hire tutors to work with the children on them and homework after dinner. When his sheets were completed and checked he would give the children a few pesos that they would use like an allowance.  He also would hold some back for them in an effort to teach them how to save and they learned when they really needed something big to go to him for a "withdrawal."

 

His greatest gift was probably the time he gave to the community during the day.  Uncle Bob would roam the streets of Dumaguete and pick up children who were not in school, talk to their families, get them to LCP staff to enroll them in LCP facilities and back into school, and literally save children's lives.  He was famous in Dumaguete for bringing homeless children food to get to know them.  He was known to many as the best kept secret to the homeless community of Dumaguete.

 

He had been feeling sick on Wednesday.  On Thursday he told Carmenia he wouldn't pick up the boys from school (unlike him).  On Friday he didn't show to bring the boys to school (unlike him) then didn't answer his text or phone call when Carmenia checked on him (unlike him).  A bachelor all his life, Uncle Bob lived in a small apartment with no means of cooking, ate mostly at the local McDonalds and at LCP, didn't own much, and had dedicated all of his time to LCP children while asking nothing in return.

 

When Carmenia sent a few staff members to physically check on him they reported they couldn't get him to answer nor open his door.  Finally, after getting the landlord to open his apartment, Carmenia got the phone call that was indiscernible except for "Come! Come!"  Apparently he had been super sick, fallen a few hours earlier getting to the bathroom, hit his head, and died.  (Friends, please call on others when you're not feeling well!!!)

 

They called the police and six policemen showed up.  LCP staff were instructed to rent a hearse and bring Uncle Bob's body to the provincial health department.  They did.  The health department said they were supposed to bring him to the hospital to be pronounced dead.  The hospital said they were supposed to bring him to the morgue. The morgue said they were supposed to bring him to the police station.

 

When they finally got him to the police station the Chief of Police said, "Is that Uncle Bob!  Who will feed the children?  He alone has lowered the crime rate in Dumaguete in the last decade."  Then he told LCP staff that he should have never been removed from his home until pronounced dead by a physician.  The physician had gone to the empty apartment and had been looking for Uncle Bob, tracking the hearse movements.  All this time, the LCP staff and the hearse had been escorted by the six police who originally showed up and none of them knew the protocol for handling a dead body?  Didn't they have standard procedures for such events?  Wow!!!

 

So everyone at LCP got the news and the place went into a tiny tailspin. Carmenia had to rent a coffin to put Uncle Bob in for the night and LCP staff "stayed with him" at the outdoor chapel in the cemetery.  Uncle Bob was survived by his two parents, both in their 90s, and at least one brother, who when they finally got hold of him at 1am Filipino time, noon California time, gave LCP staff permission to cremate the body and started making arrangement to come to the Philippines to get his sibling.

 

A small portion of the LCP community of youth

Alana and I went to the service today at 1pm.  We met the community of children at LCP then watched about 250 of them walk down the street 2 kilometers to the chapel where Uncle Bob was.  Uncle Bob was laying on a plywood platform (no pillows, no sheets, no padding, just wood) with wheels and a coffin facade had been placed over him.  In the Philippines, they have about a 10mm piece of plastic that covers the opening of the coffin during the showing of the body because it starts to smell in time.  The LCP staff had bought him a second hand makeshift suit to be buried in because he had no nice clothes (Alana, bury me naked, I want to go out just like I came in).

 

To me, it was touching seeing all the children, ages 8-22, wanting to see Uncle Bob for the last time, sing for him, pray for him, and send him off.  The place was packed with about 30 adults and the 250 children.  Sure, the children had been asked to be there yet it was obvious to me that a huge majority of them wanted to be there for Uncle Bob the way he had been there for them.  The pastors and elders of LCP ran the ceremony and although young people often chatter during such events . . . there was dead silence.

 

The pastor, who had buried his father of 83 years just the week before, talked to the children about being ready and worthy to be brought into heaven at any moment.  He reflected on all that Uncle Bob had done for the LCP community and how his lack of presence, not his money, would be felt.

 

He talked about how the Dumaguete community was leery of Uncle Bob in his first years because he would befriend and pick up children who were living on the street; how Uncle Bob paid no mind to suspicions and continued his work with young boys; about how the Dumaguete community, especially the homeless, in time trusted him and knew to send children to him.  When he said, "Many of you can personally attest to his kindness and love" I saw most every young head in the congregation bobbing up and down in agreement.  Weird, there was more sadness and tears than I had seen at the other Filipino funeral ceremonies.

 

Then Chrisopher (age 20) gave his testimony.  Good English; very clear, very articulate, loads of emotion.  He claimed to never have known his father.  He claimed that his mother had mistreated him growing up.  He remembered her leave the house to shop or work and having no one to watch nor care for him so she would tie him up until she returned.

 

He retold the event of Uncle Bob years later taking him off the streets and sponsoring him to live at LCP and start grade 2.  He remembers many times not being interested in school at all and when he would get enough food and shelter in his system, he would run away from LCP and back to the streets . . . and Uncle Bob never stopped finding him and convincing him to return to LCP and to his education.

 

Uncle Bob didn't have very many Cebuano words in his vocabulary.  The poor of Dumaguete don't have many English words in their vocabulary.  Christopher told us how he would be trying to steal a ride on a Ceres bus (bus line in the Philippines like Greyhound in the US) and Uncle Bob would find him and say, "Ceres bad, Christopher good' in an effort to get him to go back to LCP and continue school.  It always seemed to work.

 

We later heard similar stories from three other LCP students in their late teen and early 20s.

 

Christopher proudly professed that he is in college, studying computer technology, pursuing new life dreams and goals, living a successful life he could have never achieved on his own, and he owed it all to Uncle Bob, as so many of the LCP students do.  Christopher considered Uncle Bob his father for the last 12 years and already felt the loss in his life.  He cried, many of the children cried, most of the adults cried, hell I'm crying now.  Christopher mentioned how important and appreciative he was of the adults in his life, especially the foreigners.  He mentioned his appreciation for Ante Stella and Uncle Jacques.

 

Hold the phone!!!  Tie up the horses!!!  Turn down the karaoke!!!  Did he say, "Uncle Jacques?"  I didn't even know who this young man was.  I had to ask Alana if I had heard him right.  Alana knows many of the LCP children by now.  She told me that he is now a student at NORSU and although she didn't think I had him in any of my classes (I later find out he is in my MWF Eng121 9-10am class), he sees me on campus and knows who I am.  Holy paragon Batman!!!  I don't even work at LCP, I don't even hang around too much yet, I don't know this young man's name, and he mentions me in his goodbye speech to Uncle Bob.  That gives me a lot to think about.

 

The ceremony eventually ended and many students stuck around as cemetery workers in plastic gloves and physician style long coats took Uncle Bob's body in the back room where they had fired up the crematory oven.  They cremated his body and now his ashes are in a nice box, in the middle of the floor, under the pavilion, at LCP.  The older boys from the LCP unassisted living dorm are sleeping with him tonight.  Someone will be with Uncle Bob's ashes (staying with the body) until they are in the care of his brother. Then the legacy of his time, his care, his assertive pleas to take up education, his love, and his attention, will live on in the memories of the many LCP community members, especially the children.  Goodnight Uncle Bob, I must also sleep.