Si Mojacko and The Last Meeting Theory Concept
May mga tao talagang magkakaroon ng impact sa atin pero sadyang panandalian lang dadaan sa buhay natin.
I get that social media can be your toxic enemy most of the time. However, there are also occasions when social media becomes your friend, your ally. That’s especially true when you stumble upon little golden nuggets of wisdom that answer questions that are long buried in your subconscious.
Take, for example, the concept of the last meeting theory. Simply put, it explains that when two people have fulfilled their purpose in each other’s lives (say, through lessons, probably some guidance, or even friendship), the universe stops their paths from ever crossing again.
This idea caught my attention because I have an exact same experience. Back in 1998, I’d just started college. I was recovering from heartbreaks from high school (the first “love” that I lost and a broken friendship), hence I was looking for a fresh start. I wanted a new circle of friends, of course with similar interests and values.
I instantly became friends with 3 other guys from our block. We had common interests, and one of those was exploring the different corners of our university. We also loved 90s cartoons; we were still little kids at 16 years old, if you think about it. We were happy just being rowdy boys exchanging jokes with each other, annoying our girl block mates, looking for the best street foods around the campus, and discovering hidden roads at the back of old buildings. We were also busy sulking over our least favorite subjects (I hated Math; they hated KOM & KAS haha).
By the middle of the semester, we were down from 4 to 3 because the other one became delinquent and irregular. Eventually, we were down to 2 because our other barkada eventually found his place with his kababayans.
Now, let’s call my remaining friend “Mojacko” because we both loved that show and it was super popular at that time. He also told me that I sounded like “Sorao” in the Tagalog version. We were both promdis, and we missed our homes, so we often talked about our hometown, our families, and our high school experiences.
Our dreams and plans were also constant topics of our conversation. Sometimes we wanted to be scientists and do research. Oftentimes, we just wanted to have regular office jobs and go back to our respective provinces and start our families. He wanted to transfer to a constituent university that is near their hometown. I said that was good, at least he wouldn’t have to keep up with the pace and expenses of the big city. At the back of my mind, though, I was wishing that he would reconsider because he was the only close friend that I had at that time. I couldn’t keep up with our other batchmates who were cool, rich, and smart.
Mojacko was the mischievous one, often calling people names, especially those who looked like cartoon characters (Daffy Duck, and whatever funny cartoon personality he suddenly remembered). He laughed at my Novo Ecijano accent and my generous use of “kwan” and “yari” in my sentences. In contrast, he was interestingly religious and deeply prayerful. He even gave me a prayer to Padre Pio.
We continued our quest to try all the fishballs sold in different stands around campus. On other occasions, we would go with our adventurous girl classmates (the Manilenyas as we called them because we were both promdis) and ask them to show us where we could have the best and most affordable lutong bahay in the barangays along the fringes of the university.
They led us through a suspicious-looking neighborhood, but the carinderia turned out to be one of the best in the area. I still couldn’t forget their Batchoy Tagalog, sinigang, dinakdakan, bopis, and many more.
By the middle of the second semester, something unexpected happened, though. Mojacko didn’t show up in our class one Monday. We were in college, so we were not really obliged to advise our professor why we were absent. That was fine, and nobody worried about you.
By Tuesday, he still wasn’t around. I checked if he was in his other classes, but he wasn’t there. That was fine; I thought he had the flu and needed more time to recover.
By Wednesday, though, there was still no sign of him. I was already worried. Now, we didn’t have cellphones at that time yet. I was worried that something had happened to him. I didn’t know his family, and I couldn’t recall where he lived in Quezon City (he was living with his cousin; that’s all I knew).
By Friday, I finally got a call from his cousin. He told me that Mojacko had a motorcycle accident during the weekend. He had a new motorcycle and was excited to use it. He had just gotten home from Manila, and it was already dark, but he still insisted.
According to the cousin, Mojacko’s injuries were severe, and he needed to be operated on. He’d already lost a significant amount of weight over the last few days. They needed my help in securing his professors’ signatures for his leave of absence because it was close to the deadline for filing it. As the dutiful friend, I readily said yes. I also prayed for the best.
After about two or three days, I met with Mojacko’s cousin to hand him the document. It was my first time seeing him. According to him, the operation was a success, and Mojacko was already recuperating. He was already awake.
The cousin also told me they would take the opportunity to cite medical reasons and accomplish the requirements for his transfer to the constituent university. They said the university is more considerate of such cases. I was happy for Mojacko; at least he’d get to fulfill his dream, even if it were in an unconventional route.
I said goodbye to the cousin because I was heading to my next class. That was the last time I heard of Mojacko.
At that time, it was easier to move forward with one’s life because we didn’t have any cellphones and there was no social media yet. Writing letters was too cringey haha, and we were too stingy for long-distance telephone calls.
We just learned to accept that people come and go in our lives. We will all part ways at some point, and we acknowledge that we may never again meet or even hear from each other again. We accept the fact that the next news about our friends might be about their passing away.
I ultimately went on with my college life. I had some close friends; we all went our separate ways after each semester. I’d sometimes think about Mojacko and our little adventures around the campus as promdi boys who were fresh out of high school. Our simple dreams and the common yearning for home.
In 2005, during the height of Friendster’s popularity, I thought of searching for Mojacko. I found him and added him as a friend. We exchanged a few messages, but I couldn’t recall the details too much. We didn’t talk about life like we used to.
Friendster closed, and I had a Facebook account. Again, I remembered searching for Mojacko in 2015 or 2016. We both already had families of our own at that point. In hindsight, I wasn’t familiar with him anymore. He seemed to have a good position in his company; he looked like an executive. I was happy for him, how things turned out for the better after his accident.
We both have grown so much since 1998. We were already changed people, and we hardly knew each other anymore. That’s when I realized we were only meant to be good friends in the months that we were together in college.
After that, we had to part ways and move on with our lives. It was fleeting, and I had the feeling it was only meant to help us survive the first few months in an unfamiliar place, in a sea of strange personalities.
Beyond that, we were never really meant to cross paths again (at least metaphorically). I found Mojacko on social media, but he was already as alien as our other acquaintances back in 1998.
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