Byebye Sir Edmund

I asked my boss today if I could spend a longer than usual teabreak so I could go to a wake at St. Mary's, about 50 metres where I work. She said "Go ahead, it's very important." It was the wake of Edmund Hillary.

She said there has never been a state funeral for a long time, and that she wanted me, as a new Kiwi, to feel how it was. I was tempted to say we had something like that when FPJ died.

I was expecting a long cue that took forever when I got there. But instead there was just a crowd of about a hundred, and a steady cue not longer than 100 metres. People patiently waited for their turn to see the good man. Volunteers walked around passing water bottles and smiles, and seniors huddled with their partners to keep warm(it was drizzling). Mothers and fathers came with children and kept them behaved with stories about Hillary's adventures. His apos would have had the most amazing time listening to his exploits.

Inside were four state guards around the casket, but had their backs turned and heads bowed. It was as if they reflected how the country mourned the loss of a father. No man stood higher than Hillary in his time, yet in the middle of the church was a plain-looking casket under the NZ flag. Maybe it reflected how Hillary was-- A simple bee keeper that knocked-off that bastard.

It was a long casket (he was about 6'5"), and I imagined where his head was, and if he was wearing his hiking boots and crampoons. He captured the imagination of mountaineers and non-mountaineers around the world. To people like me, who could only dream of things he has done, he was a demigod. I wonder when he met St. Peter, he asked: "Hmmm... This place looks familiar, have I climbed this before?"

Before leaving, I wrote on the guest book:

"Thank you sir for making simple people believe
we can conquer mountains...
From Tuny, my family, and from ALL Filipino Mountaineers around the world."