and he showed me his garden. Then that memorable image of our high-school years flashed across my mind. There he was in Don Bosco Makati pushing wheelbarrows full of soil with his cassock sleeves rolled up while we played jolen (marbles) near the concrete basketball courts. It was the late ’60s. Until his final days, that was his distinctive trademark: his green thumb. In the background of the photos I sent you, you can see how even exotic plants bloom in his gardens. He suffered a stroke while at work in his office. Talk about going with one’s boots on. Indeed, he was such a dynamo, yet always a gentle presence. He never shouted, and he was always smiling. He was not a stern disciplinarian; we remember him as a kind and fatherly rector—a modern-day re-creation of Don Bosco himself. (Years later, when we had a jolly Polish Pope, John Paul II, we remembered that our jolly Father Felix also came from Poland.) He was very proud of the chapel, which he said was his first project. There is a similarity in the design of the chapel to the chapel where we used to hear Mass in Don Bosco Makati. Then I remembered: he was also the one who encouraged us to sing and play guitars at the daily com- munity Mass soon after the winds of change from Vatican II began to blow into the Catholic Church. When I saw him last, I left him near the chapel and then I turned around after a while to see he was waving goodbye. I thought it was such a nice send-off. I think I froze that moment in my brain knowing somehow I might not see him again, but I was not sad. He had such a peaceful, happy
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