In the morning of May 1, 2007, I was surprised to receive a phone call from a college friend of mine. I found it weird because she rarely calls me, and what’s even weirder was that it was so early in the morning. Before I answered the phone, I kind of had a feeling something terrible has happened. She told me that one of our college classmates just died. I can’t even begin to describe how shocked I was to hear the news.

Our friend, Remus, was only 23 years old when he passed away. His mother told us that he had just gotten home that day they rushed him to the hospital. The nurses and doctors at the hospital in San Pedro, Laguna told them that he urgently needed to undergo kidney dialysis and surgery because there was water in his lungs. They waited hours for the surgeon to arrive, but he never did, so they had to contact another doctor. His mother wanted to move him to another hospital but the hospital people told her that Remus, at that point, was already in a critical condition, so moving him would only cause more complications.

When the other doctor finally came, it was already too late. Remus was at the peak of his suffering, he couldn’t breathe due to the water in his lungs and his heart couldn’t take it anymore. He died of cardiac arrest while in surgery.

Remus’ mom told us that before he was taken to the OR, he was crying and was already saying goodbye to her. He already knew he wouldn’t make it. Her story made the rest of us well up.

Remus was one of my closest guy friends in college. He was kind, generous and thoughtful. As a working student, he was very focused that he managed to graduate and pay for his school expenses on his own. But the thing I remember most about him was after college, when we both got jobs in the same call center company in Ortigas. Whenever our schedules would meet, we would take our breaks together and just talk about college life and our friends back in Bacolod. Two months later, I left that job (because I didn’t think I would survive another day as a call center agent) while Remus stayed for another year. I saw him a few times after that with the rest of our blockmates. A week before he died, he texted one of our friends to say that he wanted to see all of us again on May 5, a Saturday. He said it’s been an awful long time since our last reunion.

That Saturday, we got together to see him at his wake.

(This is the only photo I could find of him online. Someone deleted his Friendster account. Hmm.)

May 1, 2008 marks Remus’ first death anniversary. Every once in a while he would come to mind and I would think about how his life would have been if he hadn’t died. I miss my friend. The rest of us in our batch would grow old and fulfill our dreams while he will forever be a 23-year old. :(

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