Afterthought: Lloyd

By Julius R. Paner

(This piece was written last May 3, 2022; a day after MFSM had a reunion meeting with my friend Lloyd held at Kuya Dods Restaurant, Davao City) 

Last night I attended a reunion of the alumni of Mountaineering Federation of Southern Mindanao (MFSM). Arranged by Event Director Jun Bacus, the event was a welcome party for a good friend Lloyd Ryan Limon, former MFSM officer who suffered brain stroke in 2016 just when he and his family was already starting to live a better life in Canada. I met old faces in the federation and of course Lloyd was there being the main character that evening. It was a bittersweet gathering with grins and tears falling in between conversations. 

When I was a new member of MFSM Lloyd was one of the most accommodating persons I knew. We shared several interests aside from mountaineering – photography and Eraserheads to name a few. Back then we only had two artists in our playlists, Eraserheads and Bob Marley. We both argue what Ely Buendia meant when composing the song Light Years and Ang Huling El Bimbo. In one of our trips in Bislig, Surigao del Sur Lloyd convinced me to do a rendition of Wasak Waltz with me doing most part of Francis M’s. 

In the heightening success of outdoor adventure in the region we had good climbs together, among those were a technical climb in Tudaya Falls with then Director Sonia Garcia of the Department of Tourism XI, a maiden climb in Mt. Magdiwata of Agusan del Sur and an Ecotourism Festival held in Kapatagan, Digos City. There were other activities in the federation where Lloyd was actively involved. He was a jolly good fellow with a heart for responsible mountaineering which we both advocated.

Sadly, all those memories were gone for him when he succumbed to brain stroke. In his testimony he said he could have gone to heaven but asked God to be back to earth because he still has a family to attend to and take care. He had to reconfigure himself every day. His wife and children had to remind him every morning about his existence. His life is an upgraded version of the movie 51^st Dates.

Lloyd’s return trip to Davao was part of the medication process, he told me. Seven Canadian physicians agreed for him to undertake a distant plane travel purposely to enable him to retrace lost memories in his home place, hoping that his recovery would be hastened. The moment he suffered brain stroke was eventually the period he cut off his mental inbox and unlike computer stuff where lost files could be retrieved using latest applications, Lloyd’s returning to memory process is quite uncertain. But I have this prayer for him to be able to retrieve at least 50 percent of his remembrance given that his very short stay in Davao, I thought, gave him a glimmer of optimism. He was actively involved in our conversations, could even dance a reggae beat that evening, and in some instances he had thrown old familiar jokes to us, the same Lloyd that we knew in the mountaineering glory days.

Me performing Ang Huling El Bimbo during the reunion

Again, as the healing progresses Lloyd is able to remember few persons slowly but surely. In fact I am flattered to be one of those whom he remembered because of three things namely mountaineering, photography and Eraserheads. The rest of those who attended the reunion were identified by him one by one and that even included their respective middle initials. He said he could hardly remember events and activities before, that would be too much I presume.

Lloyd’s dilemma never left unnoticed to all of us who were there during the reunion. He left a lasting message that for as long as you keep the person in your heart no amount of brain stroke can take away that person in your memory. No medication is known to help reverse memory loss, but in Lloyd’s case mountaineering proved to be very effective, at least during that evening. Maybe because he spent more than half of his life climbing mountains and that all experiences in the outdoors were recorded in his heart, not elsewhere.