A Hospitable Trek

During the first weekend of February, a few of my batchmates in the Upsilon Sigma Phi made a joyous trek to visit a brother who is suffering from prostate cancer. When they finally assembled, there were a total of 40 brothers, from different batches, and Sigma Deltans wishing the visited brod a hearty hello. The brod who lives in Las Vegas had been undergoing chemotherapy for his cancer and was moved to tears by the well-wishers. A DVD was shown in which other Upsilonians in the Philippines unable to come gave their greetings to our ailing brod. I unfortunately had not been able to go, and regretted not having the chance to tell my brother face to face about how much I care for him and of my constant prayers to ask God’s mercy for him. The batchmates, a total of about five together with our ‘Tatang’ who was the Most Illustrious Fellow when we were initiated into the fraternity in UP Diliman, stayed over-night at the brod’s place, camped out in their sleeping bags, re-enacting the last anxious night before their ‘finals.’ With the short email narration from a batchmate who was there, I too relived that fearful night knowing that the next day we would face the trial of our young years, when we were shown the rites and secrets of what it meant to be Upsilonians.

To my ailing batchmate, we sent our collective encouragement, “Hold on, when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them, ‘Hold on!’” right out of Rudyard Kipling’s poem If which we had all committed to memory during the barrage of neophytes’ suffering we all experienced in 1967.

I am sure there were continuous exchanges of stories and anecdotes, told in the laughters and tears of those who shared a life committed to the ideals of brotherhood. “When I meet you in the sun, Brother, I shall tell you much” never had been as truthful as when we all participate in our narratives which make strong construal of our selves as tried and true Upsilonians. Sometimes, I wonder if we were a dying breed, that last school of “salmon” swimming against the currents to reach some unknown destination, where we fiercely hanged on to our archaic value of brotherhood and camaraderie. While we seem to be overwhelmed by the tide of postmodern scepticism and fragmentation, there is yet an indifference on our part as to how strong the opposition is to our ideals, surrendering to the simple fact of our almost fanatical stance to acknowledge each other as brothers, raising our collective cry against loneliness, stronger than we are as a brother to another brother. We sing, “One case of beer for the all of us. We thank the Lord above there ain’t no more of us… for we are members of the Upsilon Sigma Phi…”