Memento Vivere
Celebrating the life of Eric Liwanag (April 18, 1972 - October 14, 2023)
It is halfway through October which means Halloween decorations have gone up around the neighborhood. Fake spiderwebs adorn the bushes, and molded plastic tombstones litter some of the front yards. The Gothic spirit is even present in at least one of our poetry journals.
recently published a mini-Halloween edition earlier this month (featuring one of my short lyric poems).October is also a popular time for sharing Memento Mori art.
These pictures are inspired by the Latin phrase that means ‘remember you must die’ and usually depicts a skull and other images reminding us of our inevitable deaths.
However, Memento Mori is often paired with Memento Vivere which together means:
Remember you will die; therefore, remember to live.
This phrase somehow entered my Latinate-obsessed head when I headed to the buffet table yesterday. Trade out the skull for a roasted pig’s head, and I think the Memento Mori, Memento Vivere idea still works. Especially if you are Filipino.
Those who have been reading this Substack for a year may remember that on this day in 2023 my childhood friend Eric Liwanag passed away very suddenly while performing music at a charity event in Boston. He was 51 years old.
Though we had no genetic kinship we grew up the way most cousins would. His father Emilio Liwanag, Jr. (Tito Jun) is my godfather, and we lived close enough to celebrate birthdays and holidays at each other’s houses.
For two years we attended the same high school where we were members of the chorus and theater groups. He was an excellent actor, a gifted musician, and a popular student. I could tell that my quiet nature and lack of any type of ambition frustrated him to no end. His standards were so high, and my personality never responded favorably to pressure. He was always the type to rise to the occasion, and I was always one to settle to mediocrity—though I would sometimes shine for Shakespeare. (I did manage to get onstage to play his mother in A Comedy of Errors.)
Last year I wrote about Eric and W. H. Auden’s Funeral Blues, a poem he would have appreciated as the music director of the Iskwelahang Pilipino (IP), the Filipino school we went to when we were young and where our own children eventually attended.
At Eric’s celebration of life yesterday I wasn’t up to telling stories in front of everyone, but I was able to rally some IP alumni to sing “The Rose”1 which Eric and the rest of us sometimes sang at the end of some long rehearsal days.
After he gradated high school in 1990, Eric went to Boston College where he became a founding member of The Heightsmen, BC’s only all-male a cappella group. He was their music director and wrote their first arrangements including “Swingtown” which is now permanently part of The Heightsmen set. Every singer in the group must now learn this song (and if you watch till the end you will see a little snippet of him performing):
If you have read through his atypical post of mine, thank you. I will be back with my usual fare very shortly. I just had to get through these past few days first.
Events like these are reminders that we all die — some of us sooner than others. In honor of them we should remember the two words that should follow Memento Mori.
Memento Vivere.
Remember to live.
In memory of
Eric Liwanag
April 18, 1972 - October 14, 2023
Husband to Joanna. Father to Victoria, Emilio, and Marina.
I think the singing starts past the 10 minute mark. Excuse my belting out the high harmony too close to the mic. Eric would have been displeased!
This was a lovely tribute. What a wonderful idea to have a memorial a year later, especially to celebrate such a vibrant life. It seems like he reminded you to live in life and continues after his death. I had a particular fondness for The Rose in high school and found I remembered all the lyrics as I listened along.
What a nice way to honor the passing of a close friend. Sorry for your loss.