When Manong Frankie, F. Sionil Jose, national artist for literature, died in early 2022, I felt like an orphan all over again, having lost my father early (1989) and then, decades later, my mother (2015) and, between them, my grandmother (1995), to whom I was very close.
Just as tragic was that Manong Frankie’s daughter, my friend Brigida Bergkamp, the editor of many of his books, also died just a few weeks before her father, just when we were in the middle of what promised to be a long correspondence.
Throughout the pandemic, while social distancing protocols stood between Manong Frankie and me, especially as he was of delicate age (he died at 97 and not of Covid-19) and with co-morbidities, he was writing me letters by hand to remind me that the pandemic, for all its horrors, was a great opportunity for writing. “In this pandemic,” he wrote in one of his handwritten notes, “I expect you to have written a lot. Go keep at it, record our time faithfully.”
It didn’t take long before Brigida, whom we called Jet, gave me a call from San Francisco, where she was based, to say her father asked her to see to it that I would write something of substance, despite—or because of—the extraordinary circumstances we were in.
“I won’t meddle,” she said. “My job here is just to get you started and, more important, to get you to the finish line.”
As a matter of fact, I was in the middle of writing my attempt at a novel, with a draft of over 50,000 words to work with. I wasn’t exactly telling Manong Frankie because I didn’t think it was anything I should tell a prolific writer like he was.
Jet was elated to hear I wasn’t going to start from scratch. I acquiesced when she asked to see my manuscript, although I was only brave enough to send her the first three chapters. A few days after I emailed her the draft, she sent me feedback on Messenger. She wrote: “Finished reading the three chapters. You’re off to a great start, Arnel. The writing and tempo are excellent. I have some questions here and there, nothing that will detract from your story. I’ll put my thoughts together and send to you. In the meantime, continue writing.”
I’m not sure she ever got her thoughts together, as she promised. If she did, she never got to send them to me. To my shock, she died shortly afterward. In a matter of weeks, Manong Frankie too died. I didn’t follow Jet’s advice. I didn’t continue writing. It was only this year that I got to open my manuscript again.
Maybe I was in mourning. Since the pandemic, I feel I have had very complex feelings about death, to which I used to be open. It was only when I met Manong Frankie that I looked forward to getting old. Before meeting him, I thought my plan was to live hard and to die young, but he was such an inspiration, very much alive even at 97, very much alive to the day he died, and still writing, with teeth, sometimes to the consternation of those his writings did not favor.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Manong Frankie, having recently re-read an article my former assistant editor Jules Vivas wrote, recalling a long, lazy afternoon we spent with the national artist when he told us, “You have to be good at what you are doing. You have to be committed first to your craft and then to your country. Because if you are not committed to the craft, anong ibibigay mo sa bayan mo? (What will you give to your country?)”
The article reminded me of the early years of my friendship with Manong Frankie when one afternoon we were together, he asked me three questions out of the blue—1. Are you rich? 2. Aside from your current job, how else are you earning? 3. When was the last time you had a physical checkup? He apologized as soon as I showed the slightest sign of discomfort. “Don’t mind my questions. Think of me as your grandfather,” he said before he took a blood sample from me from a finger prick—with my consent, of course—to check my blood sugar. I didn’t realize until later that he wanted me not to be prevented by the need to make money or by disease or by premature death from doing what he believed I was capable of doing as a writer.
Manong Frankie, when he died, was such a big loss to me.
But, come to think of it, I don’t really feel like an orphan in general. Everyone whoever loved me, as a parent would love a son, must have given me enough love to last me a lifetime, not to mention all this faith, all these proddings and lessons to keep me going, no matter what.
I must recognize these blessings, or I’ll die before I finish the novel I started because they believed I could do it. I guess this piece is a note to myself.