REX C. CATUBIG
The Newscast is signing off (2nd of 2 parts)
I flew into Sacramento, then drove to Fairfield, three more times to visit Millette. On one of those happy weekends, I organized a Luau in her backyard and invited a couple of friends—Gary de Castro and Mila Hernandez — to fly in and join the soiree. Each time, I tried to create a postcard perfect setting to frame lasting memories of our friendship.
My fourth flight and visit was the saddest as it was the last time. She was not at the door of her house to welcome me. What greeted me was someone very sick, lying on a hospital bed in a corner of her white carpeted house. It was not Millette as I knew her, more like a parody of the roles she had taken on as a stage actress. She was awake and smiled at me. She had recognized me and even tried to strike a conversation but it was just too tiresome for her as she flitted in and out of consciousness. Nonetheless, unmindful of how she looked, she even obliged to pose for a picture with us. Bald and gaunt, she smiled the best that she could manage. Even in the throes of death, this gracious friend was still giving of herself unselfishly.
It really broke my heart to see this once vivacious lady lay helpless on her deathbed slowly being sapped of life. I held in check the emotion that was on the verge of collapse. But it was all a show of brave stance to honor her brave fight.
I bade Millette goodbye and gave her as a parting gift, not a bouquet of flowers but a bottle of a floral scent whose fragrance would hover and linger.
Dan offered to drive me to the Martinez train station to get back to San Francisco. We tried some light banter along the way, recalling the time he drove me in his top-down Porsche around the surrounding fields where wetlands hunting ducks abound. Then without warning, Dan exited the freeway, drove through a desolate road towards a row of houses and pulled up at a driveway. It’s a friend’s house, he said. We sat there without talking. Then as if on cue, Dan opened up and gushing with pent-up emotion, intimated how she loved Millette, and didn’t know how life would be without her. He asked me to remain a friend even when Millette would have been gone. We didn’t look at each other, but without warning, together yet alone, there we were, two grown up men bound by fear and grief and love –and we lost it, sobbing unashamedly and uncontrollably. Millette was the love of our lives and her passing would carve a huge hole in our hearts and souls.
It was April, at the tail end of windy days in Fairfield, when spring would burst with flowers, that Millette hung up her phone for good. There would be no more six o’clock news. Just faint echoes of phone ringing. And just persistent memories– just like the after-image when you look at a thing intently then close your eyes. You still see it because the mind saves it. Happily, if it’s any consolation, the heart would save these after-images forever.
The newscast of our friendship would flicker on in memory, with Abba’s I Have a Dream resonating in my heart and reassuring the wonder of fairy tale.