Goodbye Felimon “Jun-jun” R. Aniñon, Jr.

This post is dedicated to Jun-jun Aniñon who just passed away last Friday, March 13, in the year of our Lord .

He was a childhood friend.

He was one of the sons of my late father’s bosom buddy. When my father was the Barangay Captain, Jun-jun’s daddy, the late Felimon, Sr. was then the Barangay Treasurer. I didn’t live with my parents when I was a girl but during school break, I always got a vacation to be with them and spent summer in San Isidro. I had attended “Flores de Mayo” classes held at the chapel which was walking distance from the house. Jun-jun was one of those “pupils“. That was how I met him. He was a year older than I. He was one of the “makulit” boys, bubbly, energetic, a teaser but he was definitely the smartest. Well, he always got a perfect score during quizzes. And I really admired him for that. He became my favorite classmate. And as far as I could remember, he only attended that Flores de Mayo classes two summers. He lived in the neighboring Purok but most of the times he would show up with some of his friends while I was washing clothes at the back of our house and have chitchat with them.

He was a classmate.

We hadn’t seen each other for awhile. The next time I met him was inside a classroom. I didn’t expect him to be my classmate in the sense that he is a year older than me. But sad to say, we were kind of like we didn’t know each other, shucks! Don’t know why. Maybe he felt shy or maybe I was. He got another circle of friends and I got mine too. But since we both belonged to a block section or what we called an “Experimental Class”, we were classmates for 4 long years and we were close with everyone. He was the class Mathematician. I wished I had his brains. He is so good in playing with numbers. And aside from that he is also good in History, in fact, he was one of Ma’am Nobleza’s favorite in the latter’s Araling Panlipunan subject.

After we graduated from high school, we had our own separate lives but we always had a communication with each other, I mean, the whole class. And we always found time to gather at least once a year. As usual, he was the same guy I met during my childhood days. When he got married, I thought he would not attend our batch gathering anymore because he was kinda focused on his family. I even thought that he was a member of “Takosa” because when I chanced upon him in the Mercury Drugstore, he was with his wife, while we were talking, he looked so serious and behaved, not the typical Jun-jun that I knew. I updated him about everyone and I told him that Vanessa and I and the rest of the classmates are planning to have “bonggacious” party of which ladies should wear gowns and gentlemen should wear formal outfit like Barong Tagalog and that we are going to invite the mentors with matching formal programs and speeches and so on and so forth. His reaction was “Pwede dili na lang ta magsuot ug formal attire para makagara-gara ta ba, dili man bagay gud kung mag-gara2x unya nakasuot ug Barong Tagalog, hehehe!”. Ngeeeh! But that plan was never realized because eventually we ended up joining with the other batches during the Alumni Homecoming which was held in the school‘s covered court. That was two years ago.

Before I moved here in the United States last April, less than a year ago, exactly 2 days before my flight, I got to see my classmates and schoolmates during the School Alumni Homecoming. Jun-jun was there. He was still the ever bubbly and the ever teaser guy in our table. And who would know that I would not be seeing him again. Soooo sad.

My heartfelt condolence and prayers to his family.

Goodbye Jun-jun. May you rest in peace!

Life is indeed too short.

Let us live life to the fullest!