Read by Comrade Julie de Lima during the last farewell ceremonies for Ka Joma in Utrecht, The Netherlands, December 27, 2022

First published in the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) Newsletter, January-March, 2023, Volume 3, Issue 1: Special Edition in Honour of the ILPS Chairperson Emeritus Jose Maria Sison

I was with you in the last few hours of your life. It pained me seeing you suffer so I asked the attending doctor to ease your pain and give you morphine. I hoped it would help but I still could see you straining with pain as I watched the rise and fall of your chest. And I wished so hard that I could breathe for you. But my wish was not to be.

And so, you took your last breath. Now you are re­lieved of pain. And now the pain is with me and forever will be. It squeezes my heart every time I breathe. And it will always until I join you.

The projects we were supposed to finish keeps me going. I have all the help I can get from our comrades and friends. They give me comfort and company every day.

And you left so many notes for writing projects that we planned, including requested interviews you had no more time to answer. And so, these will never be written as I cannot do all these without you.

Love bound us on the day we got to know each other. It is love that binds us and to our four children and two grandchildren, to our comrades and friends and the peo­ple whom we have served all our lives.

I shall always love you. I shall always feel your pres­ence with every breath I take, in the air that I breathe, in the sunlight that shines on me, in the water that I drink, on the ground on which I tread, and in all the things I do.

I love you as you loved me, your children and grand­children, and the Filipino people that you served with determination to your very last breath and even beyond as the following notes you left on your writing pad in almost illegible handwriting.

I have spoken in behalf of all our children. We all are devastated by your passing and they wish to bear their grief in privacy, thus, they are not here with me today.

As my tribute to my dear husband and father of our children, I adopt the resolution of the Second Congress of the Communist Party of the Philippines, “Great com­munist thinker, leader, teacher and guide of the Filipino proletariat and torch bearer of the international commu­nist movement” on November 7, 2016.

As we grieve his passing, let us turn our grief into revolutionary courage and resolve with ever greater de­termination to continue the struggle for national democ­racy until the Filipino people win their victory and pro­ceed to socialist construction and revolution.

Let Ka Joma live in the victory of the struggle.

January 12, 2023