I attended the wake last night for Ernesto Santos. He was my lecturer for Math 64, the course I took the summer of 2001-2002.

He died last friday, June 20, 2008. Some of the Math people had said that it was due to kidney failure. A few years back, he already had a kidney operation.

I just learned the news thru one of my contacts in multiply. Instantly, I sensed my desire of wanting to be there. Scratch that, the need to be there. Even though he might not remember me as a student, even though Mrs Santos might not recall my face from one of the hundreds of freshman college students that she has thought Math 17, I felt that I had to be there.

And so I came.

Never mind if I had no blockmate whom I could snag to come. Oh, a friend asked if I have plans staying there for long, and if I did, she would have followed me there. But never mind if I realized that some of the Math people on the wake were not my close friends, nor my crowd when I was college. But still, I needed to be there.

I needed, to pay respects to one of the most respected professors in the Math department. Even though he might not remember me at all, he had been a part of my college life. I remember the three and a half hours of my first summer class as a Math major in UP. We had weekly exams. We would go to school every day, five days a week, at seven in the morning, with only a fifteen minute break. It was not an easy course, and when other people would have the summer of their lives resting and lounging, we racked our brains, with calculus.

I remembered my classmates and I wondering with awe with the ease that he had when he does a perfect circle, without even using a string to do so, the dotted lines in the chalkboard that he seemed talented in, and which it took a lot of trials for us to figure out.

He was one of the known (or was it the original?) Voltes V team: Mr and Mrs Santos, Sir Agapito, Sir Noli, and Hermosilla (hmm, did I got that right?). He had this strict demeanor in him that would make one ordinary student frightened (?) of him, but it was always bordering with respect for this professor. Some Math faculty had commented on the jokes that he used to give whenever he was invited to make a speech in the department. Jokes delivered, with a still, serios manner, but would make the audience laugh despite themselves nonetheless.

I seldom write entries like this, but as one of your math students, I’d like to dedicate this entry to you.

Thank you Sir Ernesto R Santos.