FROM CHECKMATE TO LIFETIME MATES

The Love Story of Nico and Nove

EVERY wedding, so they say, always starts with a love story. Now you may want to listen to this love story of the newlyweds, my sister Nove and my good friend Nico.

First I want you to listen to this story of a shy, but bright-eyed girl in high school. She was a chess prodigy. She’s been good at playing chess, even at a very young age. She had mastered her moves even before she started training with her father.   

One particular day in August, this girl who had just turned 13 went to compete in a provincial tournament. The tournament was a group competition, and boys and girls were mixed.

But during this same period, there was another chess prodigy, a 15-year-old boy who had become popular for demolishing chess players, most of them veterans and well-known players in the province at that time in many local tournaments.  

The girl didn’t expect that she was to compete with this boy wizard. That meeting happened during the penultimate round, a game to decide who would be the champion. And the boy didn’t expect for the life of him, that the girl would defeat him in the match. It was the first time that he lost to the weaker sex, so to speak. His teammates and coach were shocked.  

In the next leg of the tournament, the boy and the girl met again for the rematch. But this time the girl and her team lost. But for the boy, he couldn’t forget that one time in his early chess-playing career he lost to a girl younger than him. This girl has a promise, he told himself.

The two chess prodigies continued meeting each other in school competitions, but this time they played in different categories. While the boy continued to shine in the boy’s category, so was the girl. They beat all their opponents in the provincial and regional meets. And they were constant teammates representing their province and their region in the Palarong Pambansa for two consecutive years. 

Then the boy graduated from high school and went to a college in Manila and continued playing chess. The girl maintained her dominance of many tournaments and went back to Palarong Pambasa during her last year in high school. 

During a chess tournament in Manila the girl and the boy met again. It was during this meeting that the boy introduced the girl to a friend, a chess player from another college. This friend had been scouting for players to play in their collegiate team, particularly the chess team for girls. So our young chess wizard recommended the girl to his friend, and later, the girl was introduced to the coach. An offer for scholarship was made to the provincial girl. And the rest is history, so to speak. 

And did love bloom between the boy and the girl? Of course, not yet.

But before I continue, and before you think I am veering away from Nove and Nico’s love story, I tell you now, that this girl was Nove herself and the boy was Nico. The college was Rizal Technological College (now University) from which they both graduated. And the coach was Mr. Mauro Yasay, who also invited Nove, and later Nico, his chess players to join this church, the Church of the Overcomer.

So let me continue my story. Nove had been a varsity player since her first year in college. Nico after two years in San Sebastian College, transferred to RTU, joining the chess team of Mr. Yasay. Here, Nove and Nico were together most of the time, particularly during practice and tournaments. In 1997, or three years after Nove joined this church, Nico was also asked to join. So it was not only in practice and actual chess competitions that they were together, but also in church activities.   

But in 1999, Nico’s heart had seemingly turned into an uncontrollable knight crisscrossing the chessboard, hoping to checkmate his opponent. He finally made a confession to Nove. He said he had fallen in love with her and wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. But Nove, was shocked, and the ever conservative, shy and very much uneducated in the love department that she was, she didn’t give any response to Nico’s affection. In fact she started avoiding her friend. No checkmate happened. Nico, just like any regular guy in situation like this, made his presence to Nove and their friends become scarce. Now like a game of chess, he changed his move. He no longer went to Nove as he used to do. 

A year after, or in 2000, Nove graduated from college with the degree Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering. Nico graduated in the following year with the degree of BS Management. 

They parted ways, and went on to establish their respective careers. Nove got a job, so with Nico.  But Nove was not satisfied with the kind of job that she was having then. Because most of the job offers to her were related to accounting jobs, she thought she rather takes an accounting course and be an accountant, than be a mere clerk with an Engineering degree. So, like in a game of chess, she may be beaten, but she can start a winning game. So she packed up her things and went back to our hometown in Ilocos. She enrolled in BS Accountancy at the University of Northern Philippines. With sheer determination and perseverance, she survived all the hardships of finishing the course. And most importantly, she hurdled the CPA Board exam given only last year.

During her absence, Nico went to work in Ateneo as a chess coach and later moderator. In 2008, or before Nove could finish accountancy, he sought out Nove’s contact number from their common friends. He believed that woman’s heart should be so hidden in God so he also had to seek Him for guidance in finding her. He finally got her number, but at that time the number was being used by one of Nove’s nieces. Nico texted her through her niece. He persisted until he made a move that made Nove answer his messages. This started a renewal of their friendship. To Nico, it was a love rekindled. They become active joining church activities together, while their friends were clueless that Nico was earnestly pursuing Nove’s love, because even at this time, Nove was so emphatic in calling Nico kuya. Some would think they were relatives because of their closeness.

So how and when did Nove get checkmated by Nico? Well, it happened in my sister Mahren’s house in Sta. Mesa (Manila). Nico went there to look into and reformat Mahren’s computer, of course, upon Nove’s request. 

Nico was served with paksiw na sili (siling Ilocos used as vegetables) for dinner. Knowing that Nico doesn’t like that dish very much, my younger sister Mahren, playfully challenged Nico to eat all the sili, if that would show that “you really love Ate Nove,” she teased. So Nico, thinking that this was his chance of a lifetime, forced a smile, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, said a little prayer and slurped all the sili in the bowl. But of course, he did that in four hours and some episode and near episode of throwing out. You need to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances, a quote he learned perhaps from chess master Bobby Fischer.

Nove was impressed and at that very moment, she knew she finally found the right man for her. A checkmate that ends the game. So she accepted Nico’s love offer and these two former chess prodigies, former teammates in college, church mates, old friends, finally become king and queen of their hearts. And they didn’t have to adjust so much for themselves of their newfound relationship, because they had been there before, shall we say it, unofficially, as more, more than friends.

And the rest again is now history, because right now, my sister Nove and my very good friend Nico would consummate the relationship with their marriage before this church, witnessed by their families, relatives, and friends.

I’ve read that chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders, but to Nove and Nico, it is a fairy tale of love and friendship. Their love for each other is sincere and divine because it is also based on good Christian teachings. 

And to end this story, a game of chess may end, but love never is. As written in I Corinthians 13:7-8, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

And to Nico and Nove, thank you for sharing us your wonderful love story. May God bless you!

(I read this during the wedding of Nico Alisangco and Nove Valdez on March 24, 2012 at the Church of Overcomer, Taytay, Rizal. I got permission of the couple to post this one in this blog.)

DUDOY

THIS is the nickname of my second child, whose real name is Neyo Martin Gundran Valdez.
 

I find Dudoy a very common nickname in the country, just like Boyet, Dodong, Junior, Mac-mac (and other Pinoy names with repeating syllables), or Totoy, but the name is endearing nonetheless.

But why the need for a nickname?

I, for one, don't have a nickname. My name, which is the same as my son’s first name, may be short enough for my father that he didn't give me any nickname. Or he might have been satisfied with it that he hadn’t thought of calling me with a darling short name. But unlike my father, I thought of a different, cool nickname for my son, to prevent confusion of his name with mine in our household.

However, my son’s now familiar name Dudoy is not what I intended to call him. It was not my choice, really. I could have named him Neymart, Mart, Neyney, Yoyong, or Oyen. The name Duday (yes, a girl’s name, that’s the derivation) came out from the mouth of N-yel (a nickname I gave to my first son Nathaniel) when somebody in my wife’s extended family playfully asked my two-year-old son what he would call the baby in his mother’s womb. 

Duday, if you had been watching telenovela or teleserye in the late 90s, was the name of a clumsy and loquacious maid in a comedy series topbilled by Jolina Magdangal and Marvin Agustin in Channel 2. My in-laws loved watching each episode while my little boy was enjoying, just after dinner, his playful mood in front of the TV. The name stuck in his head, so when my second child came out, and it turned out to be a boy, N-yel changed (or somebody must have coached him) the name to the masculine Dudoy.

I consider the name very special because it came from my precocious son, so I readily acceded to the suggestion. I had the inkling that Dudoy might grow up feeling an even deeper connection to his older brother because he loved him enough to give him a “special” name.

Perhaps I was wrong. Suddenly now, Dudoy, who will be turning 12 this May, has expressed ambivalence about his nickname. While he appreciates the circumstance or reason why we gave him that name, he is so shy, however, of telling his nickname to his classmates and friends. He has reasons though. Some of my son’s playmates love to make fun of his nickname. As if the name is not familiar or common enough for them that they would still call him with another name, like Doydoy, Dodong, and Dodo. Some of Dudoy’s friends even called him Budoy, and hated that name now, because a popular TV soap has that name of a retarded boy in the title role. Or perhaps it’s about the LPG delivery man in our neighborhood, who is also named Dudoy.

Her Mom, when she was alive, would rather call my son Doods which is nice to hear, though I prefer Doy for him; but when the Harry Potter series started to come out in movies, N-yel and his sister Roseya (my bunso), started calling him Dudley, after the piggy-like, slow-witted, pampered brat character in Harry’s Muggle family. 

Dudoy is a usual a name for Mr. Ordinary, a houseboy, or a waif in soap operas and movies. It hasn’t been used as name for the title role or main protagonist in a movie, as far as I know, except in Dolphy’s movie spoof of the local superhero Darna in the 70s, where his character’s name was Dudoy. 

(When I “googled” the name Dudoy, I discovered that it is also a surname of a South American basketball player and a real estate agent in New York.)

I can explain to my son that, despite some unwelcome association to his name, he can still use it to his own advantage and be proud of using it in the future, given also the fact that he cannot shed his nickname so easily to those who have known him by that name. He will just allow it to take on a life of its own and define how others think about him, whether he likes it or not. 

His given nickname does not have any negative connotation, unlike other nicknames that are focused on a physical characteristic, like Taba or Tabatsoy (for fatty ones), Nognog (for the dark-skinned), Palito (for the very thin ones). Others have more bizarre, even risqué and unflattering nicknames but the owners of these names would still stick to them like a badge of honor.

And, while it’s true that a nickname can be a form of ridicule, most nicknames are sometimes considered desirable, symbolizing a form of acceptance or adoration. But first, it is important that a good reputation must precede the name or nickname. Every person must strive hard and be popular with his achievement, not thinking about for all his life how he wants to be known. 

I can tell Dudoy about successful people and celebrities who are self-assured enough to use their nicknames, no matter how odd they sound. Some even flaunt their nicknames and earn admiration, even votes, from them. Today’s Filipino ace comedian Michael V is known by his nickname Bitoy, which endears him more to his fans. Even the president, Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III, is called Noynoy by almost everyone in the country. 

Dudoy should have read about Pele, the greatest football player of his era. The football legend from Brazil has admitted he doesn't like his nickname (Pele) at first, that he even punched the classmate who came up with it, earning a two-day suspension from school. Pele presumed it was an insult, but recently he has found out that it means “miracle” in Hebrew. 

While it's true that nicknames can be boring, pointless, incredibly annoying and immature to some, most people can see their advantages. Other nicknames have even become more popular than their real names. George Herman Ruth and Ernesto Guevara are much more famous as Babe Ruth and Che Guevara, respectively. 

Nicknames are not always given when people are young.  I have to warn my son about this. Other people for some reason might call him a name; maybe it’s about what they can see in my son’s character, a peculiarity, or some achievement in latter part of his life. But still, if ever they clothe him with another nickname, he would have the choice then whether to accept it or not. 

Anyway, changing a child’s nickname is not bad parenting, I haven’t read any magazine that says otherwise. But I wouldn’t do it now, nor I have plans for it. That’s for my son to decide. Whatever he wants, he will always be Dudoy for me.