Remembering Concepcion "Ching" Dadufalza

I wanted my first post for the new year to be an evaluation of the past year and my expectations for the new one. However, I came across this post from psychicpants.net concerning one of my instructors in college and I can't help but remember her and honor her at the same time.

In freshman college, I knew "Concepcion Dadufalza" as the author of that reddish book "Reading Into Writing I". This was the first book I reluctantly bought in college. We were actually REQUIRED to buy it because of the exercises.

After freshman english, I totally forgot about "Concepcion Dadufalza". She was just one of those people who wrote a textbook. She wasn't a person to me. Just a shadow of the book.

A few years after that in the first day of my Hum 2 (or was it Comm 3) class, this frail looking old lady with huge tinted prescription glasses came wobbling into the room. She was wearing a dress usually worn by old ladies serving in church. To me, she was ancient!

The entire room was suddenly quiet as this old lady took her place "front and center". She went to the board and wrote down her name : "Professor Concepcion Dadufalza". I was shaken. This was the first time that I was going to meet a real-life author.

And then she faced the class and spoke. What she said escapes my memory but her stare (at that time I didn't know that she was nearly blind) was something else. Her voice, low and husky, also carried authority.

She lost no time in enumerating her expectations and drilled us on taking down notes of assigned readings. The semester was set. We were to read "Hope for the Flowers", "The Little Prince" and Dosteovsky's "Brothers Karamazov", aside from the standard required readings. She meant business. And her's was the only class where we had a sitting arrangement, which meant a seat in front for me.

As nerve-wracking as the daily oral recitations were, I always looked forward to her class (it being after a Math subject). No one dared come to class unprepared. She was merciless in her questioning. Ruthless in demanding insights to the topic at hand. But she was so full of wisdom. She gave justice to the word "guru". She emanated wisdom.

As close as I was to her in class, I never really felt her power as I did one time I met her on the hallway going to class.

She was her usual "frail-looking old lady"-self. It wasn't in my nature to approach an instructor outside class for trivialities but something told me to come to her that time.

I introduced my self as one of her students and helped her walk up the stairs. She held on to my arms, not as a weak old lady, but as a mentor giving the pupil some sense of power.

That was also the first time I found out that she was nearly blind. When I approached her, she looked up (she walked stooping low) and gazed at me. And then, smiling, said, "Hijo, I remember your voice but you see, I can't see you that clearly".

It was a short five-minute walk. On the way, we talked about, not the lessons in class, but lessons in life. She was sharing her thoughts on how different people were during her time. Much of what she told me that time left me questioning who and what I was. Pretty much like the balm of Gilead to the wounded soul.

I was with her for just one semester. That's three hours per week for just 4 months. A really short time to know a person well. Yet that was all that was necessary for Ching Dadufalza to influence my life.

Just for her sheer dedication to her work, Prof. Dadufalza shall always be remembered in her field.

But for her wisdom to know what to say at the appropriate time, she shall always be remembered in my heart.

May the powers that be (and God, whom she believed strongly and kept vigil with everyday) bless her with their eternal communion with her spirit.