CLIMB ON YONDER, DR. MANLAWE

ODE TO DOC ABE

Into the great beyond

Mysterious lights beckoned me;

My soul rose amid cosmic dusts,

At speeds of light and

Into distances beyond understanding.

Into the great unknown

My spirit seeketh

A place of eternal light and joy,

Where mountains shone above valleys

Of rich vineyards and endless herds.

Into the great void

I stared smiling across my campfire;

By a stream that sang of adventures,

Promising me of more to come

Where time stopped except my own.

Into the bosom of my Creator

I have found my home;

I am gone but I will be there ahead,

Just right there on that saddle of eternity

Sipping coffee by my warm fire.

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This poem is dedicated to DR. ABRAHAM MANLAWE SR. who passed away last February 22, 2018. He was my trail uncle, tutor, friend and a fellow lover of the outdoors. He was one of the founding fathers of the Cebu Mountaineering Society and of the Cebu Executive Runners Club. He was a poet, a mountaineer, an ultramarathoner, a child psychiatrist, a father, a husband and a generous friend to all. He was 72.

I first met Doc Abe during an expedition climb to Mount Pangasugan, Baybay, Leyte in July 1992. There was something interesting about the man. Not that he was one of the oldest. There was Joe Avellanosa (+), Daddy Frank Cabigon and Judge Menmen Paredes, and all of them were his peers. He was carrying something which made him different from the rest. It was my first time to see an external-frame bag and he had that.

He spoke softly and humbly. Because of his demeanor, I find it easy to strike a conversation with him. He has another unusual item on his bag. It was a double-burner Coleman camping stove. The ones you pumped pressure. We fell short of that expedition but we learned from that experience. The presence of Doc Abe was reassuring and gave the stragglers strength to go on and escaped a debacle.

That bag, I hefted it once, was heavy. Not only that, it lacked the soft pads that you most find on bags. It was uncomfortable. I do not know how Doc Abe managed to carry that bag over and over again for days on unforgivable terrain. He seemed composed and lacked the lines of torture which most people forever etched on their faces. It seemed he had complete mastery and control of his emotions and pain.

I know why? He ran. Lonely hours on the hard pavements, starting at hours where tigers are most active and ending at hours where people began to drop their guard to sip coffee, were paradise to him despite the monotony. He had fused running and mountain climbing into an inseparable symbiosis where one could not live without the other. He was in a zen atmosphere.

He knows his body very well and that is the most important thing. He could completely understand how his brain behaved because he was on a level where most mortals had not been to. His fondness of the bonfire, even though how much people advise him against that, never waned. The fire was a reflection of his own soul. He could see his passion for life and living through it.

The most enjoyable moments that I was with him were during the hikes in the Malindang Mountain Range. On my first time there in 1993, it challenged my set of values and exposed me to real outdoors leadership. He never forgot me, even while I laid low from our club activities, to include me in 1998 and, again, in 2005, where my warrior’s pilgrimage came to a dying curve.

My last time to share the trail with him was a dayhike to Mount Babag last July 3, 2017. There was something unusual about him although he tried to keep it to himself. The strong aura that I saw him in his bonfires are now flickering to stay alive. I can sense it but I do not want to intrude into his privacy. It was the last time I was with him until I received a message of his confinement in a local hospital.

I was there, a few hours before his Creator took him to the Eternal Fields. He was breathing through an oxygen mask. He could barely open his eyes but he could hear voices. He was uneasy at first but when I made the courtesy of introducing myself, a fleeting smile shone from his face and he was struggling hard to make a speech. His voice left him. I could not stand the sight of his being in pain that I excused myself to breath fresh air.

That was the last time I saw him alive. The embers of life had abandoned him. I shed tears in my own privacy. I returned to see him once more during his wake. He slept peacefully at last. He was cremated. His ashes would be brought to the land of his birth in Oroquieta City, right at the coastal plains of the Malindang Range. A part of him remained in Cebu. He is now part of Mount Manunggal, his beloved.

Happy trails Doc Abe.

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