ShareThisBy Nelia Dingcong Bernabe
Ours is a special bond that has remained unbroken. It’s about a shared friendship that spans decades and continents. A history we continue to write together. Connected. Intertwined. Joined. St. John’s Institute’s Class of 1977…we are forever ONE! We, 60 minus one, forge ahead and continue our journey…together!
And journey we did.
Members of Class 1977 met recently at the home of Evelyn Cordova Desales in San Bruno, California. Shown standing, L-R, are Glenda Lacson Jin, Larry Reyes, Nelia Dincong Bernabe, Meredith Lim Peeters. Seated, L - R, Suzette Chong Reboton, Sally Chong Gochuico, Evelyn Cordova Desales and Susan Lem McClean.
With the overcast San Bruno sky and the enveloping fog casting a nostalgic backdrop one early afternoon in mid September, “The Day” came with much anticipation for the eight “kids” who will be there. The reunion that only took a few Facebook messages to plan has finally arrived.
Determined to continue putting the pieces of our history together, we drove, we flew, and we traveled from far and wide. From Melbourne to a suburb in Connecticut, from Chicago to Sacramento, San Jose, South San Francisco, and Mission Viejo, we converged on the beautiful home of Evelyn Cordova Desales and her family in San Bruno, a picturesque town seven miles south of San Francisco that’s reminiscent of the lushness of Baguio City in the ‘80s.
Although some of us have seen each other in spurts through the years, there was something about the San Bruno mini reunion that generated a lot of buzz among us. Our past reunions in the last 10 years brought us to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, and of course, Bacolod City in the Philippines. In spite of our busy lives, we found the time to be together but inevitably the dry spell of about six to eight years since our very last reunion lent itself to having another one rather urgently.
It was a San Francisco invasion for the girls of Class 1977, L - R, Sutina, Suzette, Glenda, Evelyn, Nelia, and Susan with the writer's two daughters, Cathy and Tiffany Panhilason, are shown enjoying the sights and sounds of San Francisco.
As Hua Ming alumni, we would always grab the opportunity to have these mini reunions if not for anything else but to be able to speak Chinese again, mostly Hokkien or Fookien and sometimes Mandarin. It is the ultimate tour de force. It’s embedded in our DNA. The San Bruno reunion set the stage for our Chinese-speaking skills to come out from hiding once again. The thought of the short customary phrases like xie xie ni or to xia – phrases I toss around freely to waiters after a meal in my local Chinese restaurants – joining a cornucopia of other Chinese words was intoxicating for a non-nanang (Chinese) like me.
I can hardly contain my excitement as we turned a corner, only minutes away from Evelyn’s home. In my head, I can already hear the cacophony of multilingual vocabulary that’s about to explode, the amusing cadence of an impromptu Chinese accent that comes from the sheer audacity to sound authentic, and the incessant chatting that will puncture the once quiet home of the Desaleses until the wee hours of the morning. Does Evelyn know what she signed up for?
Cue the drum roll.
“Ting Hong ah,” screamed Evelyn, the hostess with the mostest, as she gave me a bear hug as soon as I entered her home with my youngest daughter Cathy in tow. “Evelyn, peng yu, ah,” I replied. Oh, the sweet sound of my Chinese name…it resonates straight to my heart prompting me to crack a huge smile. And that languid “ahhhh” that we love to pepper our Chinese phrases with at the end is simply joy redefined.
In the midst of our tight embrace, I’m reminded of the eight years since I last saw Evelyn. It has been that long, I thought to myself. But the warmth of her hug quickly erased the lost time between then and now. Looking around her home, I noticed the warm glow of the Thanksgiving candles on the beautifully set buffet table laden with mouthwatering platters of food. Catching a waft of the candles’ sweet buttery smell, I realized in that instant where I was—I am with my childhood friends and the passage of time is measured not by the number of years lost but in moments when we’re together.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Sutina “Sally” Chong Gochuico (whose family owns Apollo Restaurant in Bacolod City) emerge from the kitchen. “Sally ah,” I screamed and we locked into an embrace. It has been a good five or six years since I last saw Sally in New York City. Sally now lives in New Jersey and works in a suburb in Connecticut.
Shortly thereafter, the “hi-hello-how’ve-you-been” frenzy which was heavily sprinkled with the “I-miss-you” hugs ensued as everybody started trickling in. Here’s the roll call. Meredith Lim Peeters arrived after we did. She works in an accounting office and now lives in Melbourne after moving there from New York City a few years ago.
Susan Lem McCLean, whose family owned a bakery at the Bacolod City Central Market, came a few minutes later with Glenda Lacson Jin. Susan now works for Sacramento County and lives in Sacramento while Glenda is a successful Orange County lawyer who calls Mission Viejo home.
Suzette Chong Reboton, our banker extraordinaire and San Jose resident, left work early to join our almost complete group. Suzette’s family owned White Tower grocery story at Capitol Shopping Center, also in Bacolod. Our lone male classmate, Larry Reyes, made it a few minutes after Suzette came. Larry is a nurse educator in the San Francisco area. His mother still owns the clothing store (the name escaped me) at Plaza Mart in Bacolod. Larry, hands down, also speaks the best Chinese among us – accent and all!
In no time, the stories started flying across the dining room table. Between bites of the delicious bounty that Evelyn and her family prepared and our hysterical laughter, we managed to squeeze in story after story from our childhood – 12 years of spawning great memories of having spent our formative years at Hua Ming. As expected, we spared no one—not the teachers, not the staff, not the younger and older kids from other classes, and most definitely not our classmates who were not with us of course.
But as early afternoon turned to dusk, the stories of our mischief and our pranks took center stage. We freely unlatched our arsenal of heavily guarded dark secrets while swigging glasses after glasses of wine. And spill we did! Who can forget the infamous “spirit of the glass” incident? And Fr. Joseph Wang, our third year high school Chinese adviser, screaming: “Who were those four boys and four girls crawling on the floor with only one candle playing spirit of the glass, STAND!” And stand I did along with seven of my classmates!
Well into the night, the stories became more vivid and with our self-respect teetering on the verge of shamelessness, out came the sordid details of what we used to do as children and teens. Like the many things we did at unsuspecting mom-and-pop stores close to our school. Lest I get really humiliated, I will spare you the details. Well, maybe just one.
Let’s just say this story involved a mean looking gargantuan of a dog chasing after a little girl (um, me again!) after she did the unthinkable at Hua Kong, a Chinese grocery store that’s still thriving in Bacolod. No worries, this had a happy ending. And having lived to tell the story, I am proud to say that I outran the ready-to-bite-my-you-know-what pooch by a few inches. All for a White Rabbit with the edible wrapper! Back in the day, you’d do anything for that piece of candy.
As the eight of us got deeply entrenched in our storytelling, stopping occasionally to catch our breaths from our unadulterated and roaring belly laughs that rang through Evelyn’s whole neighborhood, we were oblivious of the kumbaya circle that our children formed a few feet away. As our stories carried over to their side of the room, they managed to let out a spate of loud cackles, permeating the entire room with their uncontained laughter. Occasionally our children feigned aghast over the raw humor they overheard from our side of the room.
From their special perch, it must have been quite a sight to see (and hear) their elders in a setting that rarely gets the front seat. The special evening was definitely worthy of an homage befitting royalty as we allowed them to learn and witness firsthand the value of true friendship. More than anything else, they managed to see what friendship that stands the test of time really looks and sounds like.
As nighttime gave way to daybreak, we said our goodbyes to Meredith and Larry who were unable to join us the next day when we explored San Francisco, had lunch at Pier 39, and capped it with dinner at Juan de la Cruz Asian Cuisine, Evelyn’s Filipino restaurant in Pacifica.
And as fast as the reunion came, the time to say goodbye came even sooner. It was bittersweet. In less than 48 hours, we reluctantly closed another chapter of our lives. Though short and sweet, this reunion ignited the spark in us to build on the memories that we’ve created in San Bruno. Before we went on our separate ways, we decided to meet again in May. We vowed to keep the momentum going especially now that our children are grown and most of us have become empty nesters. As Larry said, “…it’s now the perfect time to plan our future reunions.”
A few days after I got home to Chicago, I found out Sally wasted no time in buying her plane ticket for our next reunion. Talk about not being excited! And because we had such a great time in San Bruno, we decided to move our next get-together to December. Vegas here we come! But first, we must not forget the valuable lesson from Prince Harry’s last trip to Sin City—what happens in Vegas oftentimes does not stay in Vegas! Or even a bigger lesson: don’t be caught without your pants! No worries. We’ll try to keep it clean. With the Johnian spirit riding high on our conscience, we’ll keep it G-rated. For now.