A morning of loving memories for Mom Edith Tiempo

At the tribute to National Artist for Literature Edith Lopez Tiempo on Wednesday morning, those who mourn her passing reminisced about the person who became a mother to many. "She and her works belong to the world, but how proud we are that we can claim her primarily as our very own," said Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Chairperson Emily Abrera in the welcome remarks. Held at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino, the tribute began with an audio-visual presentation entitled "Edith L. Tiempo, 1919-2011." The music drowned out most of the words, but whenever it softened, guests could catch snippets of the late writer's life.

National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo Photo courtesy of CCP

Edith L. Tiempo was a poet, fictionist and literary critic, and one of the finest writers in English in the country. Locally, she was a recipient of several awards from the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and the Philippines Free Press literary contests. She was also listed in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poets and Poetics, the International Authors and Writers Who's Who, the Contemporary Living Poets in the English Language, and the Marquis' Who's Who in the World. She and her husband Edilberto K. Tiempo, who passed away in 1996, founded and directed the Silliman National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City. She received grants and fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Asia Foundation. In 1978, she received the Elizabeth Luce Moore Distinguished Asia Professor Award. "Being human means there is the body, there is the flesh. But there is the spirit. And that is what makes for the human being. And that is the point the writer is trying to evoke. The human being, his response to himself, his response to other people, his response to God," says Tiempo in a clip at the end, the only clearly audible part of the presentation. From the tribute entitled "Morning of Loving Memories," it is clear that despite her many achievements, Tiempo's greatest legacy is love. From the way she preferred to be called Mom to how she would always give - whether in the form of one hundred pesos for a penniless student's lunch, or in her tireless devotion to helping her students learn their craft - Tiempo not only made a difference in the landscape of Philippine literature but in countless lives as well. The tributes began with National Artists Napoleon Abueva, Abdulmari Asia Imao, Eddie Romero, and F. Sionil Jose offering flowers onstage while Dino Akira Decena, Felicito Dumlao, Ferdinand Dumlao, and Herrick Ortiz played music from the Pietro Mascagni opera "Cavalleria Rusticana." "I didn't like Edith's fiction very much. But she wrote some of the most precious lines in poetry that I have read in this country.... in fact, it was much better than Jose Garcia Villa, in depth, and in the way she handled language. Villa was most of the time just being clever," F. Sionil Jose said, making the guests laugh. "They made so many of our writers more serious about the craft," he said of the late couple. "What Edith and Ed did was to bring a sense of community, of communion to writers who otherwise would be at each other's throats. This is one contribution for which I salute both the couple and most of all Edith who continued it long after her husband died," he said. "We cannot do anything about the past. But we can do a lot for the future," he said, quoting Tiempo. "Twilight world" Reminiscences followed from writers Danilo Francisco Reyes, Domini M. Torrevillas and Alfred A. Yuson. Reyes recalled how he and Mom Edith were unable to finish their work, transcribing a hymn that came to her as she was "hovering in a twilight world." "It was a hymn that I'd never heard all my life... but its melody coaxed me... lifting me out of my stupor. She seemed to be singing, return the praise, return the praise. And so I returned, waking up, and I found myself in the hospital. The song kept ringing in my head,'" he said. He recalled how, during her illness, Mom Edith said she found her cousin, Sister Cutaran, beside her. Early last month, Sister Cutaran passed away. "I think she went ahead to wait at heaven's gate, to sing the hymn again in its fullness, watching mom return the praise to her maker without a single chord lost this time. I'd like to think that beyond "Bonsai", "The Return", "Mid-morning for Sheba" or "Rowena Playing in the Sun", Mom's best poem was that lost hymn. A return to praise to him who is the fount of words. And yet O Lord, I have lost the song that you had given Mom. And still in your whimsical wisdom, a measure of it remains, ringing to remind us that mom is in each of us in the way we promise to love..." said Reyes. "The word "magic" describes her way with words. Her words are magical and will endure forever. Yet it is also her touching the lives of young writers that has merited her numerous awards here and in the international creative field, that has given reason for her being entered into the most coveted apex of awards, the national artist award for literature," said Torrevillas. She proceeded to quote from Rowena Tiempo-Torrevillas' introduction to "The Charmer's Box," her mother's book of poems: “My mother writes poetry much the same way the violets in her garden grow — and the other living, well-loved things in her care, as well: the furious secret mysterious processes taking place unobtrusively underneath the carefully tended balance of sun and shade and a gentle hand, with lots of open space. Always the open space, the door to her study that is never shut; where rhythm, though ‘prisoner/In the careful cage’ keeps mainly to the metrics picked up by a fine inner ear from the wind on a mountainside, the crickets at dusk, a noisy city side-street," wrote Mom Edith's daughter. As Mom Edith's words grew like violets in her garden, so too, did those who became her students. Torrevillas recalled how Mom Edith touched her life by encouraging her to speak up in a classroom discussion on Edgar Allan Poe. "Then I became convinced that I would not continue being a home economics major, though I enjoyed baking and learning to make the bed, so I majored in English," said Torrevillas. "Her words of encouragement made her students become better and better under her loving care, and moved on to become some of the country's best creative writers," she added. Finding it apropos of the country's current situation, Yuson read Tiempo's statement "Freedom as Respect and Humanness," which she had written in 2009 during the controversy on the National Artist Award. Guitarist Butch Roxas then played one of Tiempo's favorite songs, Randy Sparks' "Today" to accompany her much-anthologized poem "Bonsai." "Every story must be told" More reminiscences followed from writers Noel Pingoy and Susan S. Lara. Pingoy spoke of the lessons he learned from Mom Edith - unshakeable faith, the value of relationships, respect, and acceptance. "Every voice must be heard, every story must be told, and every writer must be encouraged to love his work ...that's why she was mom. She loved all her children dearly, tenderly, equally. Mom Edith has taught me to attend to relationships above anything else. We will never grow weary of saying salamat po, maraming salamat po Mom Edith," he said. "Much has been said about Edith Tiempo as a writer. Her attention to craft, the elegance of her prose, the clarity of her vision," said Lara, who chose to remember Mom Edith as the person whose ultimate wish was to be treated as an ordinary person, who wanted to break away from tradition and not be buried in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. Instead, she was laid to rest at the Dumaguete Memorial Park, beside her husband. As she recalled Mom Edith's fondness for detective novels, Tom and Jerry, Chowking halo-halo, and the deadly combination of ice cream, brazo de mercedes and Coke (regular), most of the guests nodded and smiled in agreement. "Like any mother she was there for us without fail. Ready with whatever was needed - a hug, a word of advice, prayer, shelter, food," said Lara, who ended by expressing a sentiment shared by the many others who also had the privilege of calling the late writer "Mom Edith." "We'll stop worrying about you now, and start to worry about ourselves and how in the name of all that made sense, we can ever go through life without you," she ended. "She was meant to be the mother of many. Today, there are a multitude who call her Mom," said Edith's daughter Rowena Tiempo-Torrevillas in her response. "It was her instinct to nurture and bring forth the radiance of others," she added. She ended by recalling her mother's words at the 50th anniversary of the writers workshop, the golden harvest of her life's work and her dad's, last May. "Let's do it again," she quoted her mother before ending with a promise. "We'll do it all our days, celebrating with you the wonder of the word." - YA, GMA News