SV Epistola was the tough and unsentimental partner to Nieves, our darling Mrs. E who was all grace and generosity. But that was just his exterior. His way of showing his affection to his friends was by ribbing them, teasing them till they were near tears or close to walking out on him.
He enjoyed appending irreverent or even well thought out titles and nicknames to other people. His youngest sister Citas Diaz had to bear with “Citas Patatas, Tambol ni Hudas.” He once called Amadis Ma. Guerrero on print “the Indefatigable Traveler.” When UP Baguio’s Professor Delfin Tolentino Jr. was promoted dean of the College of Arts and Communication, SV’s immediate response was: “Dean Tolentino? It sounds like a curse!” When a historian was named National Artist for Literature and SV thought it was an undeserved honor, he hooted, “That phony!”
But he could also be moved to write lyrically like the time he inscribed a dedication on the flyleaf of New Yorker writer EJ Kahn’s collection of essays Farflung and Footloose that he gave me several Christmases ago: “Ever the flower to the wall, the wall to the sky, to Babeth to fling feet far.”
The last two years after Mrs. E’s untimely death, I had been privileged to get up close and personal with SV. During my visits to the Infirmary, I always caught him occupied either reading the papers—he subscribed to most of the broadsheets—or a book or practicing calligraphy with his old-fashioned fountain pen. He welcomed my pasalubong, usually hopiang monggo, the rare treat of a quart of Arce buko lychees sorbet and back issues of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.
He talked about the war, of finding himself and other guerrillas in the then uninhabited island of Boracay. He talked about a rich feast of lechon and crabs flown from Capiz that he shared with some medical doctors one Sunday ages ago and how a brain surgeon was suddenly called to an emergency operation, and they joined him in the operating room as observers. I asked SV, “So did you throw up your lunch?” “Of course not,” was his quick retort. “And shame 15 generations of Epistolas before me?”
He talked about being given a choice in the manner of his demise. He preferred a stroke, explaining, “You know who groan and moan at night at the Infirmary? It’s those people who have cancer. A stroke is the way to go.”
Feeling blue one early morning, I dropped in on him and told him of my intention to quit art school. This was the first time I was seeking his opinion or advice on a decision I was about to make. “No,” he insisted very hard, “Stick it out, stay until you’re black and blue, and leave only when the teacher says you don’t belong here.” He continued, “What kind of example are you going to show your girls if at every difficult turn in your life, you walk away? That was the same advice I gave your husband when he was close to giving up on you. Stick it out with Babeth. I described you as a piece of China, broken but precious. And you see? He followed me!” By the way, he always told his male married friends to abide with what the missus wishes the way he always did and that was his formula for marital peace.
Finally he advised me to “take a long walk, and don’t get bumped by a jeep.” And he waved me off as he settled down to a breakfast of congee and papaya. I did as he told me and as I meandered down the pathways leading to the College of Fine Arts, something about SV’s message echoed: “Babeth, you aren’t a born painter. Sometimes it’s even good that you’re coming from no skills at all.”
The last weeks before his death I was unable to visit him in his new abode as I had taken his advice to heart: I stuck it out in art school, was prompt in submitting my plates, did not miss or was ever late for class and never had to endure the horrible verdict that I was just a dilettante and didn’t belong to the College of Fine Arts. He would have loved to hear of my progress or even seen my first attempts at acrylic painting. I’d have been tickled pink if he had mistaken for elephants the pile of flowers I had painted.
