A MAN clad in black stepped up on the podium with his laptop in hand and began with a declaration that the other people who spoke before him couldn’t make.
“I am Al, and I am the son of Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta,” he said.
It was on a Tuesday morning when former students and colleagues, and friends, paid tribute to Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, one of the most important women writers of the country, through words and songs
“I was never more proud to say this than today,” he added.
But the bold statement was soon followed by pauses and deep breaths as Al, a UST graduate just like his mother, tried to gather himself to get through the rest of his speech. He apologized for this, saying that he didn’t know how to speak about his mother without being “utterly sad.”
“How can I say something about someone who is simply everything to me?” he said.
Memories of a son
His mother might have been an accomplished and admired professor and writer, but for Al, ‘Ophie’ was just the normal mom who rallied behind her children no matter what they wanted to pursue in life.
“She wasn’t strict,” he told the Varsitarian. “She knew how to give you space.”
As a teenager, Al began to follow Ophie’s footsteps by writing poems, but he eventually turned his verses into lyrics as he became part of a band that played punk rock. He is the front man of Throw, “a four-piece hardcore band” that he and bandmate Dennis Maniego formed in 2000.
Though Ophie, who preferred classical music and love songs, aired her disagreement to Al’s choice of music, she never stopped him into pursuing the craft.
“She would always say that my music was too loud, or too offensive, but she let me,” he said. “She didn’t force me into anything. She just wanted me to be myself.”
He added that he “had a feeling that she was happy knowing that I was happy doing it.”
Al added that while his mom maintained her stance as a career woman, she managed to balance her role as a professional and as a mom. He said that she was a good cook, one who prepared meals for her children because she didn’t want to rely on house help for that particular task.
He added that despite being busy attending to her other “kids” in school, Ophie never failed to accomplish her maternal duties.
“She was always there for me, even when I wasn’t always there for her,” Al said.
Losing ‘Mom’
The sudden passing of his mother was a heavy burden on Al, with whom the great poetess spent most of the last year of her life. He went home from Singapore to be Ophie’s “personal driver” and assistant as she took on the task of being the University’s first writer-in-residence.
What Al never told his mother, until the eulogy, was that the overseas advertising project had yet to start. He just told Ophie that the project had been done “so that she wouldn’t feel guilty.”
As Ophie’s assistant, he drove her to and from UST, during which they would share tidbits on life and on their shared interest in literature. He had to spend time waiting for her to call it a day, often bringing his own work at her office.
But he was able to do what many writers would have wanted—he served as the editor of the literary icon.
“She would say: You are the only person younger than me who can edit me like that,” he said, echoing his mother’s teasing.
Asked for the most memorable moment he had with Ophie, Al said that he couldn’t point his finger to one specific memory because “everyday with her was memorable.”
He added that he had no regrets over leaving Singapore despite the fact that the job allowed him to do something that he loves while being able to travel.
“I’m glad that I came back because I got to spend more time with my mom in what would be the last year of her illustrious life,” he shared.
He added that Ophie “was the best mom anyone could ever hope for” and that he “will miss her terribly.”
“I just hope that the things I did to make her happy [would] outweigh the things I did to make her sad,” he said, ending his eulogy. Margaret Rose B. Maranan with reports from Rose-An Jessica M. Dioquino
