My Lolo Jun (my paternal grandmother's brother) was––literally and figuratively––a towering figure. Six feet tall and with the bearing befit of a military man, he was an imposing figure in our family.
I do not remember my first memories of him, but what I do remember is that those of my generation were, for the most part, terrified of him when we were kids. He was, in our eyes, an intimidating presence. He was bigger than everyone else––including my father, who was almost as tall but was slimmer––and had a voice with a deep, low timbre that, to my young ears, boomed whenever he spoke. When he entered the room, the tendency was for me to gravitate towards the area farthest from him, as I was averse to carrying on a conversation with someone who, with a word, could reduce me to a whispering, unintelligible mess.
In those days, the quickest way to make every minor in our family behave during family gatherings was to threaten to report said acts of misbehavior to our Lolo, who could stop us (and most adults, I surmise) with a menacing glare. Thus were usually uncontrollable miscreants suddenly transformed into God's little adorable angels.
The passing of the years, however, somehow reduced the nervousness I (and those my age) felt in his presence. Despite his fearsome reputation, I never felt anything but hospitality at his family's home, at which I was a regular overnight visitor. Yes, the voice was still there, but it wasn't used to intimidate. Instead, it was used to invite me to eat the food on his table, to sleep in one of the beds under his roof, and (when I had reached Drinking Age) to grab a beer (or, to be more accurate, many beers) from his icebox.
It was around his icebox that we, the beer-guzzling members of the family, would be the recipients of profanity-laced words of wisdom on topics that ranged from the state of basketball in this country (terrible) to national politics (likewise). His arguments were impassioned, unambiguous, and always punctuated by (depending on his mood) a loud or disdainful "putang ina!" (The expression "a sailor's mouth" couldn't have been more appropriate for him; he was, after all, a captain in the Philippine Navy, and he swore all the time.)
In later years, he would become the de facto patriarch of the De Ocampo clan. His wife––our always very gracious Lola Aila––and he would invite our rather large and extended family to his home in Pasig on Christmas Day, and everyone would go home heavier. The adults from the delicious feast and the seemingly unlimited supply of beer; the children from their loot, either in the form of gifts or ampao in their requisite red envelopes.
It was also during this time that, because of my father's passing in 2003, that I would begin to regard Lolo Jun with a tinge of melancholy. Of my many male relatives, no one reminded me more of my dad than he. They were, as I said, almost the same height, and were pretty much the archetypes of the macho Bicolano Alpha Male: tough, foul-mouthed characters who could drink copious amounts of alcohol without feeling its effects. (It would be unfair, though, to compare my father to Lolo Jun in this regard, as the latter––without a doubt––could drink more than the former.) They were also both fiercely loyal La Sallites, and were always the first to needle the (rare) Ateneans in the family, or criticize the current Green Archers basketball team if they failed to win the UAAP championship. A part of me wished Lolo Jun were immortal, for to see him was to see how my father would have looked and sounded had he lived beyond fifty.
It was fitting, I suppose, that my final moments with him would be spent during the holidays, in what would be our last Christmas with him. It was a familiar scene; De Ocampos seated around a table with bottles of beer and pulutan; a very loud and lively Lolo Jun deploring the deteriorating morals of college basketball; a healthy dose of swearing coming from the oldest drinker in the table.
There were, however, subtle hints that time (and, as I learned later on, sickness) had caught up with Lolo Jun. He didn't drink more than anyone in the table. While still the tallest amongst us, he was no longer the mountain of a man I had known in my youth. He was––as I caught him observing us with the wistful eyes of a man who had seen everything––much like the oldest lion in a pride, lying in the savanna with the proud scars of a hunter that had earned the privilege of old age by fighting off the ravages of time by sheer stubbornness and force of will.
To his last days, my uncle told me, he would remain the hardy bugger we had known all our lives, steadfastly refusing to give the gods of pain the satisfaction of knowing that he had felt their icy touch.
I was not surprised.
In a world with few real warriors, my Lolo Jun was the Real Deal, a man who could talk the talk, and walk the walk. A man who valued and honored family and friendships. And rightfully so, friends and family would honor him in return.
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Capt. Vicente Y. De Ocampo, Jr. passed away on February 12, 2008. But he lives on in the hearts of his family.
