The news of Edd Aragon’s passing away very recently came to me at time when I had just been discharged from the hospital following another angiogram. Up to this writing I have had no solid facts as to the real cause but a friend said he was last found to be complaining of shortness of breath which made me imagine he must have had heart problems too.
How many times have I quoted the Bard’s famous parting shot (“Goodbye sweet prince. And may a flight of angels sing thee to thy rest.”) But somehow such goodbye line does not jive when applied to a kindred soul, that EDD ARAGON is to me. After all, artists don’t die, they simply fade away, but their memory remains etched in our hearts, sealed in our bones, and locked in our knowing blood.
“Mars is a kindred spirit. I love theatre and for me its stage is a big 3 dimensional canvas where people can either be brush or paint.”
That’s Edd talking. He said as much in a long interview article he once wrote about me for a local publication and remains enshrined amongst the who’s who he has both painted and written about in his online blog . Apart from being an eminent visual artist-cartoonist-humorist, he was a journalist too — of no mean feat. Witness his own sketch of me, one that my unica hija has framed and now hangs amongst our family collectible objet d’arts and artefacts.
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Long before his “untimely departure”, (if I may poetically call it such), Edd and his mon amour actually long resettled back in the Philippines where he pursued his art merrily and mercifully in a manner an artist can only give full reign to when he works in situ. In some of our private FB conversations, I had romanticised to Edd how I envied his position to be home and practicing his craft which remains my greatest frustration having been swept away as a migrant artist in an adapted second country laden with simple joys and comforts too impractical to veer away from. From day one, Edd has always supported my artistic outings and critiqued them ravingly in his column. I have been preparing for my own swan song that I shall present back home one of these days. I will see you there EDD. Meantime, break a leg mate! (All Rights Reserved)