Ricardo Carlos Yan (March 14,1975-March 28,2002). I was a closet fan of Rico Yan. I had a crush on this guy the first time I laid eyes on him at the Martin Nievera talk show. He was still a commercial model back then. What a guy, I told myself. When he joined showbiz, I couldn’t bring myself to admit I was a fan. Claudine Barretto and Judy Ann Santos were the luckiest girls alive and I hated them. I didn’t want anyone telling me I was jologs. I secretly watched his TV shows and movies. Only my closest buds knew how much I adored Rico Yan that I proclaimed him my soulmate. He was everything I wanted in a guy- smart, articulate, educated, values-oriented, gorgeous, kind-hearted, just my age and the only crush I knew whose zodiac sign was compatible to mine. Well everything, except that he was famous and he never knew I existed. My mom told me if I were a boy, I would’ve looked like him. He could’ve been your son-in-law, mom.
The day he died, I was on 24 hrs duty as an intern. The elevator girl broke the news to us. At first I thought it was some cheap showbiz crap. After a while, the news got around the hospital then I saw it on tv. The guy I pined for all those years was a cold cadaver transported through the helicopter from Palawan. I was dumbfounded. God. What happened to my so-called-soulmate? I grabbed my phone and called (note, called, not texted) my mom, “Ma, Rico Yan is dead”. I went back to duty like nothing happened. I was still hoping it was a big joke. The next day, that was when I realized how affected I was. I wept while watching the news on tv.
A few weeks before he died, I remember watching his last flick “Got to Believe” twice. Yes twice, at Glorietta, with different sets of friends. I could never get enough of the movie. Not only was Rico acting in it, the story itself was something I could very well relate to. Don’t ask me what it was about. Go figure. In fact, I bought a vcd of it months later. I could not come to terms with the fact that the bubbly guy so full of life was lying lifeless at the La Salle Greenhills Chapel. Come to think of it, I was staying in Mandaluyong at that time, in such close proximity to where they had his wake. My co-intern Sharon Arenas was dragging me to come visit him. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to line up among the thousands of fans who wanted to see him in his coffin. I didn’t want to be confronted not just with the fact that my soulmate was gone, but more importantly, the truth that he wasn’t really my soulmate, that I was just one of the fans who adored him from afar.
When he was to be buried, they passed in front of our hospital. I went out and caught a last glimpse of him, inside the car that carried him in his coffin. I got teary eyed watching him pass me by. A week after, I visited his grave. Oh,yes I did. He was my screensaver, much to the horror of anyone who opened my pc. During my boards review, his picture was beside my study table, which my classmates found eerie. Well, at least I passed the exams. He was the only dead person whose picture I never got scared of staring at. Months after his death when I was still talking to my friends about him, Sarah has this to say “Grace, pwede ba, ang buong Pilipinas naka-let go na kay Rico Yan, Ikaw na lang ang hindi pa!” So why am I writing this? All Souls Day just passed and he was definitely one of those souls that I remembered. I was thinking, he died when he was just 27. If ever I finally meet him in the afterlife, I will be older than him. Bummer.
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