Like this:

The Facebook has just told me to help Judith Caloza Cuaresma find her friends.

***

I’m not sure I’ve come to terms with not having gone to visit her before I left for school. Maybe I thought she’d still be there when I got back to Manila over Christmas. Maybe she’d be in better shape – maybe we could chat and catch her up on all of the wonderful things I learned in my first few months of the MBA. Never mind that she wouldn’t be able to laugh the way she used to – maybe I could still tell her jokes.

I never got to.

Maybe I should have insisted on taking that trip north – it really wasn’t too far at all. Maybe I could have at least tried to convince Carlos that I would still have liked very much to visit, even if she could no longer walk, or talk.

But I didn’t.

***

So what about Judith C. Cuaresma was so special? What about her made me -and so many others – love her so much? These are the reasons why - presented in the good, old-fashioned IAG way:

***

NOTES ON JUDITH C. CUARESMA

———————————————————————————————–

• For a long time, JD sat at the bureau next to mine (there were no cubicles then – just solid, heavy wood) . Across the vast expanse of tableness, we would chat and exchange ideas. IMF. World Bank. BIS. CMI. How should we phrase this bit? That bit? Is this a good idea? Where should the threshold be? How did you do that calculation?

• One night (or afternoon?), it came up that JD and I both had thinking blogs. We exchanged thinking blog urls, and voila – JD’s blog on finance, technology and macroeconomics was The Republic of Jakakistan’s first (and only) cross-blog [I don't know how you say this in proper blogspeak]. If you notice my blogroll to the right, you will find among the list a link to JD’s blog. It is a goldmine of information and extremely useful links.

• Sometimes, I would vent while she listened, smiling slightly, to my tirades of pent-up frustrations. On one particularly animated rant I had about a working style that was different from mine, I wondered how she could just laugh and be so calm and collected about the whole thing. She made a joke. I got distracted from my anger. She offered sensible potential explanations. She had similar views, but was just duckie. I wondered how on earth she could be so cool about it. But she was, and she worked with this different working style. She just did it.

• Her laughter was remarkable – it was gleeful, child-like and contagious. It  had a volume of 15 on a scale of 1 to 10. It would reverberate past the other group, hit the wall and come back to IAG. JD would also clap. Often, she would wheeze because she was laughing so hard. I would laugh so hard with her that I could no longer breathe. It was pure, mirthful laughter.

• What was so special about JD was not just that she was an excellent professional (she took initiative, she did her work, she did it well, and there was never, ever a word of complaint that I ever remember coming from her lips) and intellectual (she was curious, open-minded, critical) – it was that she was an extraordinary human being. It’s not often that you find someone so happy, chillaxed, understanding, patient and kind.

***

Why the HELL did I even wait until she was dying to even think about visiting her? For over a year, we still worked on the same floor – I had only moved to the other end of the building! If I had to time the walk from the dealing room to the old IAG stomping-ground, I would say it took about two minutes to get there. Less.

How many times did I go back to ID to say hello? Once? Twice? Did I go there just to say hi, or did I go there to request  information from someone, and just say hello on my way out?

How many times did we meet for coffee? Once? A reunion of the triad (me, JD and Normie) just once, because I happened to run into them during break time at the Bridgeway Cafe – which was, for nearly a year, maybe 30 steps away from my chair. Just outside the door to my office.

***

But life’s not meant to be about regrets, right? At least that’s what I believe. It’s about minimizing regrets moving forward, knowing what you have done or failed to do in the past.

So what have I learned from this? How do I minimize future regret (if you can call it that – but that’s just semantics) knowing what I know now?

It’s a lesson I’ve been learning all of my life, mostly with the loss and near-loss of loved-ones:

If you value people, make sure they know it.

Tell them. Show them. Do something thoughtful (which stresses thinking about what they like rather than what you like) for them. However you convey, however they understand – do it.

If you can do it now, do it now. Don’t wait. It doesn’t even take much.

Just do it. Now.

***

The beauty of having a thinking blog is that it helps you think. The beauty of this thinking blog post and bullet-pointing is that it has helped me – just now – realize something so incredibly crucial that I think I’m still a little bit gobsmacked at how I’ve failed to remark it.

I’m checking my Life Map now [yes, I have a Life Map]…

Wow. This event doesn’t even appear on my Life Map!

This is an egregious omission if I ever saw (or didn’t see) one.

***

Once upon a time…

I was sinking. I was sliding down a spiral with my eyes wide open. It was as if I were falling forward – just watching the ground rise to meet my face without putting my arms out to catch myself.

Then, one late night, OT nanaman:

- [Rant] JD, I can’t let this sit. I just can’t. I’ve tried for three weeks to ignore it, but I can’t! I can’t do what I have to do properly! [Rant rant rant]

- Then write a letter.

- But… But… Huh?

- Yeah. You should. Just tell X what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling. I’ll read it before you give it. Give it by hand. [She was always so matter-of-fact]

- Oh. Okay.

- And don’t forget to make this phone call to make sure that ABC. And call Y to see whether this, that and the other.

- Oh! Yeah, I didn’t think about that.

- It’ll be alright, Jax.

The next day:

- Okay I’m ready. I fixed the bits you suggested.

- It wasn’t much, just editorial. It’s well-written, straightforward, professional but from the heart. Good.

- I don’t know if I can do this, JD.

- Of course you can. What’s the worst that can happen? Here. Go. Good luck, Jax!

- Hooookay, here goes…

And the rest, as they say, is…

***

My Tribute to Judith C. Cuaresma

Judith C. Cuaresma was the catalyst of my very first This-Is-MY-Decision-I-Own-It-I’m-Gonna-Do-This-I’m-NOT-Gonna-Let-Life-Happen-to-Me-I’M-Gonna-Happen-to-Life Decision. She was the one who nudged me to take that first step on the long journey of empowerment. JD also contributed to my philosophy on communication, which has been one of the key elements of the wins that I have had in my life – and I expect this to continue to be true in the future. I love her not only for the person she was, but also for the integral role she has played in my life and my success. For this, I am grateful.

If I had gone to her funeral, this is what I should have said.

***

After Facebook told me to help Judith C. Cuaresma find her friends, I opened the link to JD’s blog and had another look around.

It’s funny – I never noticed it before, but on her blogroll, under “Economists”, there’s Krugman, Mundell, Kreuger… and me. Awesome.*

***

Her deathaversary isn’t, I believe, for another few months. But who needs to wait for an occasion to say something like this?

Thanks, JD. I never got to tell you, but thanks.

***

Today’s serendipitous musing was brought to you by Facebook, the social network of champions.

*My thinking blog evolved a little bit out of just economics at some point. To put it JD’s way, it started to overweight capital markets, and diversify into other areas.

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